1
www.commodorefree.com
Editor
Another issue arrives
Quite exciting times as recently I received my DC2N
and ultimate 1541 interface, although as of this time I
haven’t used them! I am hoping to find some time to
test out these devices.
We continue with this issue the Beginners guide to
the Commodore 64, and move another step closer to
the goal of a competent user. Also in this issue I
managed to pin down Robert Bernardo and obtain an
interview, that is quite enlightening about
Commodore and the Cl and Dtv devices that were
designed by Jeri Ellsworth finally we finish with a
review or write up of the recent Mossycon4
Rather disappointing is that No one entered the
PPOT competition to win 1 of 3 cd roms of the bands
music, so does that mean all readers don’t want
competitions or all have the Cd's already I wonder if
the question of putting pen to paper is of putting for
some users so I will re run the competition at a later
date maybe with a 1 question you need to email and
answer to and if no one replies I can take it
competitions are not wanted in the magazine
Regards
Nigel
HOW CAN I HELP COMMODORE FREE
Ok the best way to help would be “write something
about Commodore” (yes for the observant I spelled
the company correctly this time) _grin seriously
though articles are always welcome,
WHAT ARTICLES DO YOU NEED
Well they vary contact me if you have an idea but I
am looking for
Tutorials - (beginners and Expert)
Experiences with Commodore
Why I love Commodore machines
Interviews - maybe you have access to a power user
Contents
CONTENTS
Editorial and Contents Page 2
NEWS
ulec news Page 3
General news Page 4
Behr Multicart for the VIC 20
PAL VERSION Page 5
PROJECTS
Wild bunch project Page 6-9
REVIEWS
DIRMASTER version 2 Page 10-13
MOSSYCON 4 Personal Review Page 28-30
INTERVIEWS
Interview with Robert Bernardo Page 14
TUTORIALS
DMC Music Editor Page 21-22
Commodore 64 Beginners guide 4 Page 23-27
Issue 19 May 2008 page - 2
www.commodorefree.com
NEWS
ulEC and ulEC/CF are projects
Jim Brain
More options Apr 15, 12:26 am
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
From: Jim Brain
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:26:16 GMT
For those who do now know, ulEC and ulEC/CF are
projects to allow a I EC-based CBM computer
(VIC/64/128/etc.) to utilize a IDE drive Formatted with
a FAT file system or a Compact Flash (CF) card with
such a file system.
ulEC development took some very interesting paths
this year (more details if there is interest), but I am
happy to report that the unit is working and I'm now
concentrating my efforts on making it CF-card
agnostic (testing various cards I have here), and
trying to increase compatibility. I have a deadline to
have units for sale in time for the CCCC expo in late
June.
I've taken advantage of the long list of features in
another project (sd2iec) to make ulEC even more
compatible and useful.
So, here is a combined list of features:
o Supports IDE and CF cards (ulEC supports
IDE/IDE, IDE/CF, or CF/CF if you have an IDE->CF
adapter for the second card. ulEC/CF supports
single CF card)
o Supports drives of any size, though support for
>137GB drives needs more testing. :-)
o Supports FAT12/16/32 partitions of any legal size
* Supports partition-less cards/drives, or up to 4
primary partitions or 3 primary and 12 extended
partitions. (Email me if you have more than 12
extended partitions on a drive :-)
o Supports FAT Long filenames
* Transparent support for PRG/SEQ/USR file
extensions, with REL support planned.
o Transparent support for POO/SOO/UOO files, with
ROO support planned.
o Supports read and write of D64 images.
o Block level disk access supported on D64 images
o Most CBM DOS commands
(Scratch,!nitialize, Rename,etc.) supported.
o CBM general config commands (UO, U+, U-, Ul,
U9, U:, UJ) supported.
o CBM block level commands (B-R, B-W, UA, Ul,
U2, UB) supported when in D64 image.
o CMD-style partition ($=P) support
o CMD-style subdirectory (MD,CD,RD) support.
o CMD DOS Commands (G-P, G-<shift-P>) support.
* Long form CMD directories ($=T:*, $=T:*=L)
supported
o 1581-style/CMD-FD/HD-style wildcard matching
supported ($:JIM*RAIN)
o JiffyDOS fast loader equipped (PAL and NTSC
support). Can be enabled or disabled via DOS
command. & Firmware can be updated by copying
new firmware file to root dir of first drive, first partition
and resetting unit.
(* noted items are in my WIP codebase, & are
features in mainline codebase I need to enable in my
variant)
I want to publicly thank Unseen of sd2iec for creating
a very impressive codebase that made my feeble
original attempt pale in comparison. Although I will
regret not being the originator of the ulEC firmware, it
simply made no sense to duplicate all of the features
and require sd2iec to re-implement features already
in the ulEC project. I think Unseen also appreciates
another developer on his firmware project. My
additions have primarily been to the FAT LFN code,
the CMD HD commands, and multiple drive support.
In process is time-based directory pattern matching
(>00:00:00 and <00:00:00), support for programs that
determine drive type via M-R, and D71/D81 image
support.
I'll refrain from listing the ideas in the enhancement
bucket, but there are quite a few. At this point, I am
prioritizing features that might make HW changes
necessary, for obvious reasons. Firmware-only
additions can be made after shipping.
I'm happy to answer questions in the thread.
http://qroups.qooqle.com/qroup/comp.svs.cbm/brows
e thread/thread/9b8ea39e1f5dc75a?hl=en
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 3 -
www.commodorefree.com
Vintage Technology Magazine
Is available to download now up to version 6 priced
at £0.99 back issues are available
Go to www.vintaqetechnoloqv.co.uk to download
This issue features:
Old-school computer learning
Will my vintage electronics collection still work in 100
years time?
Flight sims - flying with home computers
Defender - the thinking man's arcade shoot-em up
Commodore PET computers
Early modems in the US & UK
Tomy handheld electronic games
Vintage LED clocks
Learn about maths the vintage way
Vintage voice recorders
First 'personal' radios
Interview with Richard Hanson - Superior Software
founder
Repairing handheld games
HP calculator memories
FREE online sample Edition is available
http://www. vi ntaqetechnoloqy.co. uk/down load, htm
Jeri Ellsworth at the NotaCon
/BlockParty FPGA Programming
This is Jeri Ellsworth at the NotaCon/BlockParty April
4th, 2008. She is talking about creating a demo in
FPGA.
http://blip.tv/file/821819
Commodore brand name in trouble
again
Escom paid $14m for the Commodore name, then
they suffered problems and closed Tulip rescued the
name in 2004 they sold the brand name to Dutch
firm, Yeahronimo who tried to market the brand name
by selling M3 players and the Gravel, the company
suffered poor sales and looks like they are now in
financial problems This doesn’t affect Commodore
gaming who are a separate company altogether.
http://www.channelreqister.co.uk/2008/04/18/commo
dore lawsuits/print.html
#Amigaguide
The first edition of this English pdf magazine is now
available for download. In this edition the following:
disk.info, Howto use floppies, Kick Off 2, Tilt,
Trashcan, Amiga Laptop and Sandnes BBS. You can
download the pdf after you register (for free).
http://amiqaweb.net/index.php?function=amiqaquide
3 ReadMeFirst - Editorial
4 Disk.info - News
7 Floppies...Floppies....Floppies
- Erlend writes about what we can use all
those floppies for...
8 Kick Off 2
- Did you know there is a very strong world
community gathered around the famous
Amiga soccer game Kick Off 2? Learn more
about Kick Off 2 WC, Cups and community
by reading this!
12 Tilt - game review
- Michal writes about Street Rod 2
13 Trashcan
14 Tilt - game review
- Michal writes about another Amiga game
15 Sandnes Amiga BBS
- Sandnes BBS is still running after 10
years, and still uses an Amiga 1200 as its
host computer. SysOp Firestone writes a
little computer history....
20 Amiga promotion products
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 4 -
www.commodorefree.com
Behr Multicart for the VIC 20
PAL VERSION
I am happy to announce that I now accept orders for
the PAL version of the Behr Bonz multicart.
The price is the same as the NTSC version: 30$
Canadian. Shipping to Europe or Australia is 11$ for
up to 5 carts. Please visit www.8bitcentral.com
(COMMODORE FREE) Ordered and waiting with
anticipation will do a review for the magazine
once I have my hands on the device
G
Galaxian/ Gorf/ Gridrunner
In the Chips
J
Jawbreaker 11/Jelly Monsters/ Jupiter Lander
K
Keyquest/ Krazy Antics/ KStar Patrol
L
Lazer Zone/ Lode Runner/
Lunar Leeper
M
Maze/ Medieval Joust/
Menagerie/ Mine Madness/
Miner 2049'er/ Mobile Attack/
Money Wars/ Monster Maze/
Moon Patrol/ Mosquito
Infestation/ Motocross Racer/
Ms Pacman/ Mutant Herd
O
Omage Race/ Outworld
P
Pacman/ Paratrooper/
Pharaoh's Curse /Pinball
Spectacular/ Pipes/ Poker/
Polaris/ Pole Position/ Predator
/Princess and Frog/ Protector
List of games
included in the PAL
version:
A
AE/ Aggressor/ Alien
Blitz/ Alphabet Zoo/
Amok!/ Arachnoid/
Artillery Duel/
Astroblitz/ Atlantis/
Attack of the mutant
Camels/ Avenger
B
Black Hole/ Buck
Rogers: Planet of
Zoom
C
Cave-In/ Centipede/ Choplifter/ Cloudburst/ Clowns
Joystick/ Clowns Paddles/ Computer War/ Congo
Bongo /Cosmic Cruncher/ Cosmic Jailbreak/ Creepy
Corridors/ Crossfire/ Cyclon
Q
Q-Bert/ Quackers
R
Radar Rat Race/ Raid on Fort
Knox/ Rally-X/ Rat Hotel/
Renaissance/ River Rescue/
Road Race/ Robot Panic/
Robotron 2084
S
Scott Adams: Adventureland/
Scott Adams: Mission Impossible/
Scott Adams: Pirate's Cove/ Scott
Adams: The Count/ Scott Adams:
Voodoo Castle/ Sargon 11 Chess/
Satellite Patrol /Satellite and Meteorites/ Scorpion/
Sea Wolf/ Seafox/ Serpentine/ Shamus/ Sir Lancelot/
Skibbereen/ Skyblazer/ Space Ric-o-shay/ Spiders of
Mars/ Spike's Peak/ Spills and Fills/ Springer/ Star
Battle/ Star Post/ Star Trek: Strategic Operations
Simulator/ Sub Chase/ Submarine Commander/
Super Amok/ Super Slot/ Super Smash
D
Deadly Duck/ Deadly Skies/ Defender/ Demon
Attack/ Dig Dug/ Donkey Kong /Dragonfire/ Droids
T
Terraguard/ The Sky is Falling/ Threshold/ Topper/
Turmoil/ Tutankham/ Type Attack/ Typo
F
Fourth Encounter/ Frogger
V
Video Vermin/ Videomania/ Visible Solar System
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 5 -
www.commodorefree.com
THE WILD BUNCH PROJECT
THE C64 CONVERSION
http://www.gamesplavaames.co.uk/thewildbunch/
http://www.gamesplavaames.co.uk/thewildbunch/music/ionwells wildbunchstorv.mp3
unfortunately I couldn’t finish it as I needed Assembly
experience to handle the Gunfight
bitmap sequence and music. Also,
around then I had
limited time due to starting college
and also getting contract work with
Cult/D+H Games. Around the time
the work was put on hold (mid 1988)
The Wild Bunch project was
completed to around 80% and fully
playable.
Now 20 years later, following an email
from Frank Gasking of GTW
regarding the project and after finding
the lost disks with my original
conversion work on, The Wild Bunch
Commodore 64 conversion has been resurrected and
is to be completed once and for all! With the original
Wild Bunch approaching its 25th birthday at the end
of this year the intended deadline is scheduled for a
New Year 2009 release.
ORDERING INFORMATION
The Wild Bunch will be made available as a one-off
Special Limited Edition tape for the Commodore 64
and will cost only £3.99
+ £1.00 UK P&P,
outside the
THE STORY SO FAR.
It was back in Nov 1987 when I got mitts on a shiny
new C64! Having been a Classic on the good old
Spectrum (which I also owned) and Amstrad, and a
firm favourite of mine, I was very surprised when I
found that Firebird hadn't made a C64 version! By
early 1988 I was increasingly getting more interested
in the programming side of things and so started to
learn 64 Basic. What with The Wild Bunch being
mostly written in
Basic I quickly
decided to do my
own conversion
as a sort of pet
project and
learning curve.
Having acquired
the full Spectrum
Basic listing of
the game it
placed me in
good stead to
undertake what
was then a
mammoth task.
TUT WIT n DT TTVTOI-r
UK Overseas P&P is
£2.50. Once all copies
are sold there wont be
any more duplication
runs so to guarantee
your copy, you should
pre-order securely
using PayPal.
http ://www. qa mes pi ayq
ames.co. uk/thewi Idbu n
ch/
I learned a lot
during the
conversion, but
FIKFTMftX'. . . -FIKFE.IKD. . . . FlftFTMftX'
NEWS - 13th April
2008
The Gunfight street
scene is completed!
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 6 -
www.commodorefree.com
Check out my diary below for screenshots!
NEWS - 12th April 2008
Work has started on the Gunfight street scene today,
keep an eye on the diary over the next few days as
I'll be attempting to complete this scene over the
weekend!
NEWS - 8th April 2008
The Wild Bunch Loading screen is complete. See my
Diary entry for more details!
NEWS - 6th April 2008
The Wild Bunch has now been made available for
overseas pre-orders. I Have also added Kenz's Diary
entries in a new section below.
NEWS - 12th March 2008
Kenz to contribute to the project! Following a few
emails to my buddy and all round C64 hero Jason
'Kenz' Mackenzie of Binary Zone, BIT Live and BITS
fame he has agreed to contribute to the project! He
will be helping in various areas and designing the full
colour inlay and label packaging using the original
Spectrum's into a fully authentic Commodore 64
version! Our intention is to produce a one-off special
limited edition small duplication run on tape with full
colour authentic packaging for Commodore 64
collectors. These will be closely based on the original
Firebird Spectrum & Amstrad packaging to make it as
authentic as possible.
To cover production/duplication costs this will be sold
for £3.99 with £1.00 postage for UK and £2.50
postage for Overseas orders. There will only be one
duplication run of this product so to reserve your
copy you should pre-order using the UK or Overseas
pay pal
DEVELOPMENT DIARY
12th-13th April 2008
I started work on The Wild Bunch Gunfight street
scene. I used the Spectrum screen that Kenz had
sorted out for me on a c64 disk, which I converted
onto PC first. Using Congo I converted this straight
into multicolour mode to see how it looked in 64
multicolour form at its most basic. As you can see
from the screenshot below a lot of work would be
needed to enhance this fully!
The other problem with this screen is that it’s smaller
than the 64 screen size. The spectrum screen is 256
x 176 pixels, whereas the 64’s screen size is 320 x
200 pixels. I decided the best way would be to keep
the original size of the Speccy’s and just add the
extra border around the outside and continue the
buildings into this area. I did this using Photoshop
and a half an hour later the original
Spectrum screen looked like this:
Following this I added in some brickwork effects on
the buildings in Photoshop before the initial
conversion was to take place in Congo and upon
doing this it actually wasn’t too bad at all, but it still
needed a heck of a lot of work to optimise it for the
64. I spent the next 3-4 hours editing and tweaking,
but still a lot of work left to do. I decided to spend
most of the next day (Sunday 13th) finishing it off. I
continued more work on the Gunfight scene today,
but before I began I coded a quick routine in the
CCS64 emulator and loaded in the existing bitmap to
get it to display on the screen. This was saved for
later use. I proceeded with the bitmap in Congo doing
a good 3 hours more worth of tweaking, changing
and playing around with various looks and eventually
I managed to get it to a stage I am happy with. Now
during the development of the bitmap I had an idea to
make the most from the bitmap in which I can change
the colours of the building, sky and ground in-game.
About 4-5 colours were not used so I colourized each
building using any unused colours including purple,
green, red etc. Following this I adapted my code so I
can use a lookup table and replace the red, green,
purple colours with any colour I like. The great thing
about this is that I can use the same bitmap, but
make the scene look different by mixing the 16 colour
palette and building colours. I can also darken the
ground and sky to make the scene look like night¬
time or dusk for example which will give each
Gunfight scene a more varied look!
Once this was complete I downloaded Sprite Pad on
the PC and started work on the actual Gunfighter
sprite. I simply magnified the original Spectrum
Gunfighter and copied him pixel for pixel into 64
sprites, but I added an additional multicolour sprite
for underlying behind the Hi-res black outline. This
gives the Gunfighter full colour for his face and
clothing and I can vary these colours in the game
depending on who you are having a gunfight with.
This will again add some variety to the scene. As an
additional extra I created a Hi-res cactus for the
background. Finally, I bolted all this together into my
code and tested it for various scene styles, two of
which you can at last see below.
I have a few plans for the Gunfight sequence which
will add something extra for the 64 version compared
to the Spectrum and Amstrad, though I'm not saying
any more as that'd spoil it for you. You'll have to find
this out yourself when you play the game!
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 7 -
www.commodorefree.com
22nd March 2008
Kenz finishes first proof version of The Wild Bunch
inlay. See below! Wow, very nice!
21st March 2008
The story so far intro music has been composed. I'm
using the Commodore 64's Dutch USA music player
tool on my PC running the excellent CCS64 Emulator
to handle all the audio music for the game.
Click here
http://www.qamesplayqames.co.uk/thewildbunch/mu
sic/ionwells wildbunchstory.mp3
to download an mp3 snippet of the track!
8th April 2008
The Wild Bunch loading/title bitmap screen has been
created! This was developed over a 3 hour period
last night. I used the original Hi-res Spectrum
loading screen which I opened into Photoshop on the
PC. From here I added a rainbow effect on the red
sky, I then saved and loaded this into the Congo PC
graphics tool, this allows you to convert an image into
any Commodore 64 bitmap form.
Before I started I had to resize the image into
320x200 pixels for the full 64 screen. Following this I
used the dithering feature to convert the rainbow
effect and hi-res picture into C64 multi-colours and
spent some 2 hours tweaking the rough edges and
adding my own colouring to the sun, cactus, and
wording. I may come back to this at a later stage to
see if I can improve on it further, but for now you can
see the results in the screenshot below!
18th March 2008
The original Spectrum inlay and tape label is
scanned and sent to Kenz for re-designing and
development.
16th March 2008
Using some handy emulation tools the original
Spectrum 48k Basic listing is re-printed and my
Commodore 64 conversion listing printed for
comparison and reworking to ensure the conversion
retains the same strategy elements and formulas as
the Spectrum. With these in hand I can
make any changes to my old source to
bring it much closer to the original. It'll
also make it easy for me to read through
and pick up from where I'd left off 20
years ago!
2nd March 2008
I find my lost C64 work disks with the old
Wild Bunch conversion source on! This
was no mean feat, what with well over
500 work disks to sift through it took me
quite a few days to actually find all the
disks with the Wild Bunch source on.
There were so many different snippets
of source and work data that I've done
across many disks over the years that it
was very difficult to label and keep track.
I use my old Windows 98 PC a CBM
1541 disk drive and PC to 1541 cable
and convert the Wild Bunch disks into
.d64 images on the PC. Now I can work
on this project using the CCS64 Emulator on my
modern office PC!
KENZs DIARY
22nd March 2008
My next job was to airbrush the front of the inlay to
change the yellow border from the Spectrum version
to a red border to show it's a C64 game. Using the
C64 Firebird game 'Arcade Classics' as a guide I
noticed the bottom section of the border on the C64
5th April 2008
The Wild Bunch project website goes live!
27th March 2008
Kenz produces The Wild Bunch website layout for
me to modify and use for the pre-order, news and
diary of the game.
26th March 2008
I have created more music for the game, the jingle
which plays when the map is shown. Also the music
that plays when you take a shot character or prisoner
to the sheriffs office following the gunfight sequence.
game was still yellow but the top section was red so I
carefully airbrushed the top section of the Wild Bunch
inlay to match. I then lifted the COMMODORE 64 /
128 text from the Arcade Classics inlay and placed it
onto the Wild Bunch inlay. I then produced a red box
to go on the spine of the inlay to show that it is the
CBM 64/ 128 version of the game. To finish off the
inlay I retyped all the instructions and added C64
loading instructions. I also changed the credits to suit
this new version of the game. And voila! The C64
inlay was complete. I then printed a test inlay, took a
few photos of it in a tape box and emailed them to
Jon for his feedback.
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 8 -
www.commodorefree.com
21st March 2008
I began working on the Wild Bunch inlay today! My
first job was to remove the creases where the original
tape inlay had been folded. This took a good few
hours as I had to rebuild the pictures of the cowboys
shown in the background on the inlay. I also had to
carefully restore the sky and ground so it all blended
together nicely. Ironically, this was the hardest part of
the inlay to produce and you probably won't notice
any of it as the inlay will be folded once again when it
gets put into the tape boxes! After that I removed any
remaining blemishes, creases and small marks from
the inlay and then set about getting rid of the two
holes from the back of the inlay. These were the
holes that the 'tape lugs' on the tape box went
through to keep the tape secure in the box.
Nowadays you can get clear tape boxes with no lugs
(which I think look much nicer) so I got rid of the
holes. This meant more art working to restore the
background images and I also redid the screenshots
as one of the holes was punched right through where
the screenshots are illustrated on the inlay. I used
nice cripsy clear screens from the emulator on the
inlay which look much sharper than the ones on the
original Spectrum inlay.
18th March 2008
I received the tape inlay scans from the Spectrum
version of the Wild Bunch from Jon today so I set
about creating a tape inlay template in Photoshop to
ensure my artwork prints at the correct size. I then
dropped Jons scans into the template and worked
out what needed to be done to the artwork. Jons
timing was perfect as it's Easter in a few days which
means I'll have a bit of extra time to work on the inlay
artwork.
12th March 2008
I received a very interesting email from Jon today
which mentioned he was resurrecting his old
conversion of the Speccy / Amstrad budget title 'The
Wild Bunch'. I was rather excited by this news as I
used to LOVE that game on the Speccy as it was one
of the early Firebird budget games I bought. Anyhoo,
Jon mentioned he would like to produce a special
edition of the game on tape complete with authentic
artwork so I offered my photoshop services and
requested that Jon send me hi-res scans of the inlay
to have a fiddle with. It looks like me and Jon are now
collaborating on a C64 project after all these years.
COOL!
27th February 2008
So there I was minding my own business when
**SHAZAM!** an email arrived from my good C64
chum Jon Wells. I had tons of fun working with Jon
(along with Alf Yngve, Paul 'FeekZoid' Hannay and
Jason 'TMR' Kelk) on various C64 projects back in
the 90's so it was great to hear from him again after
all this time. I was also really pleased to hear he had
been working on a new C64 release - the Sideways
SEUCK Project - so I crafted a little banner for him in
order to help promote it. But that was only the
beginning ... !
Commodore Free
would like to thank the project Jon Wells for providing
permission to reprint this information
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 9 -
www.commodorefree.com
DIRMASTER version 2
http://stvle64.org
DirMaster is a Windows graphical disk management
tool for manipulating commodore disk images using
windows drop and drag features and supporting a
wide range of disk image types, but it is a lot more
than that.
DirMaster
How do you improve on the best!, I guess you just
have to listen to feedback and make your application
that bit more special. Well that’s exactly what’s
happened with DirMaster. This is a superb tool, that
has recently been updated to version 2.0; and
although I looked at an earlier version in Commodore
Free magazine I decided to do a full review of version
2.0
To install DirMaster you will need a Windows
machine with either windows 2000, Windows xp or
vista although the documentation says it may work
with windows 98 there are no promises to that effect.
As with all Windows installations you will need to
have administrator privilege over your machine.
Download the installation package and double click
to install it’s that simple.
But hey aren’t there hundreds of these tools available
for creating and manipulating Commodore Disk
images?
well yes there are versions for dos as well as
windows and they all work, some are clumsy and
some do support dropping and dragging some are
quite good but nothing seems as slick as this
application, read on and you will see why.
Smooth as silk
First let me explain the dragging and dropping on the
application, select a file lets say it’s a text document,
first run the DirMaster and create or open a disk
image now left click the file and HOLD the mouse
button, drag the file onto the disk image and then let
the mouse button go, hey presto as if by magic the
text file is now in the disk image this function alone is
a real timesaver, I am sure windows users will
appreciate this.
The opposite also works so lets say you have a text
file in a disk image and you want to extract it to
another folder or your windows desktop for example,
open the disk image, and left click the file HOLD the
mouse button down and move the file to its new
location on the desktop or in another folder, let go of
the mouse button and the file is extracted! Double
clicking on the text file in the disk image will open the
file for reading as shown in the screen shot of Issue
17 March 2008 Editor comments.
Issue 19 May 2008
page -10 -
www.commodorefree.com
DirMaster v2
b lOlUbgb
B t.editor
COMMODORE FREE MAGAZINE *
T-i- U ■ ■■ I
ISSUE IT MARCH 2Q08
0MM.COMMODOREFREE.COM
FREE TO DOWNLOAD MAGAZINE
DEDICATED TO COMMODORE COMPUTERS
AVAILABLE AS TEXT. HTML. PDF, SEQ AND
COMMODORE G4 D64 DISK IMAGE
!DITOR
SOME OF VOU READING THIS MAV WONDER
IHV I DECIDED TO INCLUDE AN INTERVIEW
IITH 7BREAD BOX COMPUTER SVSTEMS? AS
'HEY ARE NOTHING TO DO WITH COMMODORE
EELATED ITEMS. WELL BECAUSE SOME
IUESTIONS HAVE RAISED RECENTLY ABOUT
Disk File Edit View Windows Help
M illB'ue J|LtBlue
&
ooo
400
OOO
t <*> ■
(Blue |Lt Blue
Hey wait that’s just one feature of the application;
You could for example open 2 disk images and copy
files between the 2 using drop and drag. You can
also open the application and drag a disk image onto
the running application; this will open the disk image
for viewing. Or you can run the application and select
file - Open but that’s just a bit dull. You can multi
select disk images, drag them over the running
application and they will open in separate windows
for viewing. Disk images that have changed by
adding modifying or deleting files will show there
status of a change without being saved by adding an
asterisk to the file name as shown the disk image is
godot127.d64 I changed one of the files by deleting it
and the disk status has changed to godotl 27.d64 *
Ok I am getting way to excited lets look at some of
the menu items starting left to right
Open a Disk image
Well fairly self explanatory click this icon to
open a disk image for viewing or editing, also when
installed if you want you can have the application
assign itself to d64,d81 etc so double clicking a Disk
image will open a disk image
Save a Disk Image
Guess what this saves the current disk image, also
closing the disk image will prompt the user “the disk
image has changed do you wish to save”
Find disk
Very nice feature you can hunt for a file in a
disk image by selecting a folder to search and giving
the filename as shown below
godotl 27. d64
Issue 19 May 2008
page -11 -
www.commodorefree.com
Show Commodore tool
Pops open a box with the Commodore
character set, inversed video normal,
small case and commodore characters’
you can then click on one to enter it in the name of
your applications title
Change the case
Toggles the case in a disk image or in a text file so
upper case letters become lower case and vice a
versa
File Properties
Shows the properties of a selected file giving
Name / Type (prg etc) / file size / tract and sector
/date etc
! "ttStffi > * + , - . ^
012 3 45 G 7 8 3: ;< = >?
GABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
PQRSTUUHXVZC £] tf-
---- k ^L\/r
-|*_¥| rX o* !♦+* Iff 1 !
:^ll==i=limLJ ■
■ □■l;i ikohhi icj: mi icl
l- _ _l lv.r 11- ■ L -i _
r J ""rH I I ■-* ■ \
Show separator tool
some disk images use separators’ between
filenames clicking this tool provides a preset number
of separator files for the user to click and enter into
there disk image
OQO
ooo
000 r.
Bam Edit
If you don’t know what BAM edit is this wont be any
use to you,
Move Up or down
Moves the file in a disk image up or down so its
higher or lower in the disk listing order
Jump to sector
Opens the Sector editing tool
Change to parent directory
Changes
f
\
Toggle font size
Changes the size of the text and so
reduces the size of the disk image
windows there are 2 sizes normal and small to toggle
between
Issue 19 May 2008
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www.commodorefree.com
Toggles Hidden characters’
Turns on or off hidden characters’ in a
file
Show Deleted files
Toggle’s on or of the display of deleted
files in the disk image
{Blue 33 l LtBlue 3
Colours
Changes the display background and text of a disk
image purely cosmetic the first sets the background
colour the second the text colour, again this is just
the amount of attention to detail the programmers
have added to the application, its not an essential
item to have but makes things easier on the eye
These are the main parts of the program you will use
again all very intuitive and if you cant remember what
one of the icons does hovering over it will show a text
hint,
Other functions from the pull down menu are Validate
disk, batch processing
But I am really out of space in this what was
supposed to be a mini review
The minimise maximise and red cross close
buttons and the borders of the screen in the
Dir Master review are copyrighted to Microsoft
corporation as well as the trademarks Windows,
windows 98, windows 2000, windows vista and
windows xp and the abbreviations xp,vista,98,2k
If you click in the disk window on a basic program for
example, then you are shown the listing of the basic
application shown below is a disk from Loadstar, the
loader application is in basic and double-clicking on
the file opens up a box with the basic listed, right
clicking on the text allows the copying of selected text
to windows clipboard and pasting into any application
as shown below (a selection of the highlighted text)
I would have liked to have seen an option to print the
text out preserving the Commodore character set and
special characters
dv=peek(186):ifdv<8thendv=8
5 poke32767,13:poke53371,0
6 poke65534,1 :rem s-key on
10 poke53281,0:poke53280,0:print RSTUVWXYZ
[]{}"":ifpeek(653)=0thenpoke53265,11 :gosub100
II poke53265,27:
tq=ti:poke198,0:ifpeek(653)=0thengosub1000:goto13
12 poke53280,11 :poke53281,11 :goto50
13 rem
Also the display can be toggled between 40 and 80
column mode to allow more or less text on the
screen,
Issue 19 May 2008
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www.commodorefree.com
Interview with Robert Bernardo
Commodore enthusiast
and Commodore promoter
COMMODORE FREE - Please introduce yourself to
our readers.
ROBERT BERNARDO - Hello to all my Commodore
and Amiga friends! I'm Robert Bernardo, long-time
C= enthusiast and president of the Fresno
Commodore User Group (FCUG).
CF - What do you do for a living?
RobertB - I'm an English teacher at a middle school
in California. Specifically, I teach English as a
Second Language to students in grades 6-8 (ages
11-14). I'm in my 29th year of teaching.
CF - How did you first come in contact with the
Commodore brand? Can you remember your first
Commodore machine, and do you still own the
machine?
RobertB - Back in 1981, I took a class for teachers;
if I remember correctly, it was something called,
“Computers in Education”. This was a whole new
world for teachers. Using computers in the public
school setting was a new and mysterious frontier,
because there were so few classroom computers in
our area. Well, we met in an office setting with rows
of Tandy 3 computers ready to be used. We were
taught the basics - howto turn them on, what a
floppy disk was; howto load, run, and save; howto
use BASIC language. We moved slowly through the
day-long curriculum. By the end of the day, I
received a pat-on-the-back in the form of a certificate,
and I thought that was that.
In 1982 I started seeing magazine advertisements for
the inexpensive Commodore 64. At the same time, I
took another teachers' class in MS-DOS which had
me relearn the basics of using a computer, in
addition to those MS-DOS commands. In 1983 with
more and more advertisements for the Commodore
64, I started feeling the need to get one. My best
friend at that time had the same notion. We scanned
the magazine and newspaper ads constantly for a
good deal. Finally in August of 1983, Federated
Electronics, a chain store throughout California,
advertised the C64 for $199.95 plus if you bought it,
you'd get the CBM bonus cassette pack for free.
What a deal! At that time, I was still a poor teacher
with no credit. I bought it, but it was about 2/5 of
my monthly net salary! The computer was such a
best-seller that the store ran out of the bonus
cassette pack, and I had to get a raincheck to pick it
up later. I was so excited; I brought the C64 home
and eagerly pored through the user's guide, keying
in the sample programs and watching what they did
on screen of the little black-and-white t.v. I used.
However, I couldn't save anything, because I had
no disk drive nor cassette drive.
It was only a month or two later that I bought a
cassette drive for it, but not the CBM cassette drive
because it was more expensive; I bought a knock¬
off drive for $30. I bought my data cassettes from
Radio Shack in the belief that those C-10 or C-20
blank cassettes were superior to regular cassettes. I
saved the few user guide programs but had no
source for more. For what else could I use this new¬
fangled wonder? Then I bought my first commercial
program, the Quick Brown Fox word-processing
cartridge. Its manual humorously led me through my
first steps in writing a document, but I had no printer
to use! Then after using it a few times, I accidently
pulled the cart out with the computer on; I had
shorted out the cart, and it was useless.
In 1984, the computer magazines started coming out
- Home Computer, Compute!, Computes! Gazette,
etc.. Also the stores started having shelves just for
computer software, not just one or two pieces of
software but dozens and dozens. I bought Totl. Text
2.6, a word processor on cassette. I was back into
using the C64 usefully. My best friend bought a disk
drive and a 1525 printer, the printer capable of
printing graphics. I had my choice - buy a 1541 disk
drive for $400 or buy a Royal daisywheel typewriter
with Centronics interface for $400. A letter-quality
printer... I had to have it. Not only was it a
sophisticated typewriter, but it would become a
peripheral for my Commodore. O.K., printing
graphics was not a high-priority for me. With the
additional Centronics cable that I had to order for $20
and a type-in program included with the typewriter,
Totl. Text 2.6 was able to use the Royal typewriter.
Because my best friend was deeply interested in
Commodore, too, he would key in magazine type-in
programs for me and save them to cassette so that I
could use them. A lot of those programs were games
and utilities, and some were educational programs
for children.
In the summer of 1984, I took a teachers' university
class on what was basically word-processing class
with the program, Bank Street Writer for Apple II.
Yes, there were rows and rows of Apple M's for
teachers to use, and though I dutifully did my lessons
on the Apple 11,1 always thought of the alternative of
the C64. For our final project, we were to write a
multi-branching story for students to read. The other
teachers used the Apple M's, but with the permission
Issue 19 May 2008
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www.commodorefree.com
of my instructor, I brought in my C64 and datasette
drive and wrote the story with the C64 and Totl. Text.
By September, 1984, I brought my one C64 set-up to
the classroom - one of the first teachers to have a
computer in the class. With the typewriter/printer and
the C64, I was able to write letter-quality papers and
then mimeograph those for the students. The
students used educational games from the
magazines, like Sea Route to India (a simulation) and
Hangman.
When the Gemco department store declared
bankruptcy in 1985, the store had a clearance sale of
everything, including a huge selection of Commodore
items. I bought my next Commodore computer then,
a SX-64, for $400 plus tax. I now had a disk drive,
and that opened up the bigger world of Commodore
programs on disk. Students were now able to use
commercial, disk-based programs, like Cave of the
Word Wizard.
Good thing that I got the SX-64, because the old C64
had become flaky. I had replaced the original power
supply when my best friend had his C64 die due to a
bad power supply. That bit of prevention wasn't
enough. The keyboard became unresponsive.
Some replacement 6526 ClAs and a keyboard
cleaning couldn't help it. I had to retire it.
Later in 1985, Commodore 128s and 1571 disk
drives had dropped in price to $200 each. I went to
the Montgomery Ward department store, bought the
128, and reserved a 1571, because those drives had
sold out. A few weeks later when I came back to pick
up the delivered 1571, I had to show my driver's
license just to release the 1571 into my hands; those
drives were in such demand.
The 80-column display was a special treat; what I
saw on the screen was more akin to what was
printed out. I was on the hunt for Cl 28 programs
that specifically catered to the machine's abilities. In
those days, I was not part of a user group, the
nearest, the Stockton Commodore User Group being
3 hours away, with meetings held on a weeknight. I
had to depend on C= magazines and retail stores to
keep me informed on what was happening with
Commodore. I'd go to the local bookstore to pick up
the monthly Loadstar disk magazine; I'd go to Sears,
Montgomery Ward, Software Etc., or Software &
Such to select C64 and Cl 28 programs off the
shelves. I'd go to the gigantic Commodore Business
Machines-sponsored World of Commodore shows
that were held in Los Angeles in one year and San
Francisco the next year. Thousands and thousands
would go to those shows! I remember in 1986 I
walked up to the CBM booth and directly asked a
representative if CBM was going to drop support for
the Cl 28 in favor of the brand new Amiga computer.
The rep gave me a look of disdain and denied that
the Cl 28 support would be cancelled. Of course,
now we know the truth.
By early 1986, I was doing class grades with the Info
magazine-rated spreadsheet program, Vizastar 128.
In the middle of doing my first grades with Vizastar,
the Cl 28 system decided to quit working! Grades
were due in a few days! Not knowing whether it was
the Cl 28 or the 1571 that had gone bad and not
having time to repair the system at the local
Commodore repair shop, I ordered a C128DCRfrom
Lyco Computer in Nevada. It was over $600! The
computer came in time, and I was able to finish my
grades. That computer served me well; from 1986 to
2003 I used it to calculate the grades. It was only in
2003, when the school district told me I had to do
grades on their system, that I stopped doing grades
on the Cl 28.
Over all those years, there would always be a
Commodore in the classroom, first with the C64, then
the SX-64, and then finally a mix of C64s and Cl 28s.
During the heyday of my putting C= computers in the
class, I had up to 4 or 5 systems on the side tables,
ready for the students to use. By 2003, the district
was pouring Windows desktop computers into the
classroom, and the Commodores had to be moved
aside for those. However, I still have a Cl 28DCR in
the room. Earlier in 2007, I brought in a PET 2001
for students to ogle; when I told them that they were
looking at a 30-year old computer, they all said,
“Ooooo!”
CF - The Fresno Commodore User Group -
http://videocam.net.au/fcuq/ Tell our readers about
this group.
RobertB -- Throughout the mid-1980's and the early
1990's, though the faraway Stockton Commodore
User Group was hours away, I tried to maintain
contact with that group. By December 1994, the
president of that group told me that there was a
Commodore user group in nearby Fresno. In
January 1995 I eagerly drove over to Fresno and
found the Fresno Commodore User Group, meeting
at the downtown public library. The members warmly
greeted me, were helpful to the Nth degree, and
satisfied my need to belong. I immediately became a
member. Two years later I was elected as president
of the group, and to my chagrin, I'm still president. In
all the years that I've been with the group, at various
times I've served as disk-of-the-month editor and as
newsletter editor. Nine months into my membership
with FCUG, I started writing for the club newsletter,
and I've been writing ever since that time.
The history of this Fresno Commodore club started
back in 1981. Our oldest members told me that back
then there were 2 C= groups, which finally combined
forces to form FCUG. What an organization it was in
the early days! Meetings were held at the local adult
school which had banks and banks of Commodore
64s to use. Attendance at such meetings was 150-
200. Meetings were bi-weekly.
Nowadays FCUG meetings are monthly, held on the
third Sunday of the month from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at
the Pizza Pit Restaurant. As mentioned above, when
I joined up, meetings were in the public library.
However, the library kept reserving the meeting room
to other groups, though we supposedly had a long¬
term lock on the room. After being frustrated several
times in getting the room, we made arrangements to
meet at the public meeting room in a shopping mall.
After several months of using that, we were moved
into the senior citizens' center of the mall. We
thought we had a permanent meeting place for sure,
but after a few years there, we were told that the
room was to be used for other purposes and such a
senior citizens center would be moved out...
somewhere. That answer was not good enough for
us; it might have been months before a new venue
would be found. With the help of another FCUG
member, we discovered the Pizza Pit, the owner
being happy to host our group (and also make some
money from our hungry members, I'm sure).
The Pizza Pit is a good place to meet, though when
the Daytona 500 or the Indianapolis 500 races are
Issue 19 May 2008
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www.commodorefree.com
broadcast on the big-screen t.v.'s there, the place is
too crowded and noisy to hold our meetings. We
then move to a nearby, calmer Mexican restaurant
and its meeting room.
Membership in our club has stayed steady at about
25, but few are now from the Fresno area. The rest
are spread throughout the United States and
England. Our treasury has stayed steady, too; in
other words, we have plenty of money in the
treasury. Our newsletter, the Interface, is nominally a
bi-monthly newsletter. In the early 2000's we had
three different newsletters coming out of the club -
the Interface from our editor, C= Voyages from me,
and The Halfling, a more folksy newsletter from
another member. Yeah, we were writers in those
days.
In 2005 Jeri Ellsworth, creator of the CommodoreOne
and the C64 DTV, contacted me about organizing a
West Coast Commodore show. I then contacted
Bruce Thomas of the Commodore Users of
Edmonton, who had the same idea of such a show,
too. If it were not for the backing of FCUG and the
Clark County Commodore Computer Club (of Las
Vegas), the Commodore Vegas Expo, CommVEx,
would have never gotten off the ground in 2005 and
would not have continued to this day.
When I joined FCUG in 1995, there were several
clubs throughout California, like the Commodore
Hayward User Group (CHUG), Fremont-Union City-
Newark-Hayward User Group (FUNHUG), C=
West/AWest in San Francisco, the Diablo Valley
Commodore User Group (DVCUG), A Bakersfield
Computer User Society (ABACUS), the Valley
Computer Club in Modesto, the Long Beach
Commodore User Group, the C64 Preservation
Society in Red Bluff, CIVIC 64 in Ventura, the
Sacramento Commodore User Group, and the
Stockton Commodore User Group. I visited most of
those clubs. By 2007, FCUG was the only one still in
existence. Sure, there are two Amiga clubs and at
least two retrogaming groups left in California, but if
you want nearly 100% Commodore, you come to
FCUG. We remain devoted to Commodore.
CF - How would our reader join FCUG, and what
would they be entitled to as a user?
RobertB - Club membership is only $12 a year.
You'd send us a check/money order to our club
address at 3487 E. Terrace, Fresno, California
93703. Alternatively, you can send us the money
through Paypal (but no credit cards through Pay pal).
For your membership, you get at least 6 issues of our
Interface newsletter, access to our disk library of
2,000 to 3,000 disks, and interesting, late-breaking
C= news by e-mail.
CF - Are you a member or promoter of any other
Commodore groups?
RobertB - I also belong to The Other Group of
Amigoids (TOGA), an Amiga club out of the San Jose
area of California. I'm an honorary member of the
Fort Collins Commodore Club (FC3) of Fort Collins,
Colorado and of the Anything Commodore User
Group (ACUG) of Astoria, Oregon. Also I'm trying to
start up a new club in Southern California called
SCCAN - the Southern California
Commodore/Amiga Network (formerly known as
CAN). Based in the northern area of Los Angeles,
we've had monthly meetings since December and
now those meetings are bi-monthly, the next one
being in May.
CF - What makes Commodore special?
RobertB - A Commodore computer is a friend, and
for many of us, a long-time friend. It's a way of life -
a multi-functional device long before the 2008
machines we have today. On it, we run games,
compose and play music, write documents, publish
our newsletters, balance our portfolio, keep our
records, draw our art, digitize our photos, make our
animations, and code our programs. It's a fun
computer... with a different feel when compared to
the Windows and Mac computers of today. It has its
quirks, as all computers do, but these quirks are
familiar, understandable, and comforting.
CF - Our readers have noticed your photo and name
appearing everywhere related to Commodore. Can
you comment?
RobertB - That is just a misconception. I can't be
everywhere in regards to Commodore. I just report
and record the shows and meetings that I attend. I
just spread Commodore news to users - whether
through e-mail, at the forums, or in the newsgroups.
I just try to be helpful, friendly, and interested in all
things Commodore and Amiga. If that makes me a
cheerleader for Commodore, then so be it. Of
course, when I retire from the teaching profession, I'll
have a lot more time to attend many more
Commodore and Amiga events and meetings.
At such events I've met many good people and some
famous ones, too. Whether they are C= newbies or
veterans, regular users or industry types, it’s been a
honor to meet all of them. Speaking of those in the
industry, it was quite exciting to meet such CBM
notables as Jack Tramiel, Bil Herd, Dave Haynie,
Bob Russell, and Dale Luck.
CF - Tell our reader about your treks to collect and
redistribute Commodore hardware.
RobertB -1 usually get e-mails from former users
who have discovered the FCUG website. They want
to unload their collection of Commodore and Amiga
goods, but they don't want to dispose of the goods in
the landfill. They want to donate those items to our
club in the hopes that others may productively use
the Commodore and Amiga goods they once
enjoyed.
I've been up and down the state of California and into
Oregon and Nevada in order to rescue the items;
that's a lot of gasoline used and many hours on the
road! Usually, the rescued items are in good to
excellent condition. Those items are packed into my
large car; sometimes I must make several trips to the
same former user just to finish getting everything.
Then those items are brought to one of four storage
places - my house, the rental storage facility, my
parents' house, or the “storage” house. From there,
they can be distributed to those who need hardware
and/or software.
If a FCUG member needs an item, he/she has first
crack at getting it. If an inquiry comes from someone
outside the club, I do my best to find that item. (We
don't have a database of all the goods we have. To
make up such a database would take months of
cataloging!) If the item has a good prospect of being
sold, then it is brought to the few shows where we
have a vending table. We've had a vending table at
Issue 19 May 2008 page -16 -
the Vintage Computer Festival and at the Classic
Gaming Expo. Perhaps this year we'll have a
vending table at the Commodore Vegas Expo. The
only problem - who is going to transport all of that
stuff all that way to Las Vegas?!
I think our vending prices are more than fair, maybe
even outrageously low-just enough to cover the
cost of the table and put a some dollars into the club
treasury. Five dollars for a C64 with power supply
and box (if provided), five dollars for a 1541 disk
drive, ten dollars for a flat Cl 28 with power supply,
ten dollars for a 1571 diskdrive, 1701/2 monitor or
similar - $15, 1902 monitor or similar - $20,
packaged software - $1, cartridges - $1 to $2, extra
computer magazines and books - take them away
for free. Compare those with prices at eBay.com, a
place I rarely visit these days when I have so much in
storage already.
I remember one year at VCF; we barely covered the
cost of the table, having only a few dollars of profit to
put in the treasury. It's chancy; one year software
sells big; another year it's hardware. You never know
what the public is into. A big thank you to all those
who have bought items at our table!
CF - "I ADORE MY 64" What's all this with the
badges? When we met, you presented me with one.
I wear it all the time, but the clip is slightly broken and
sometimes falls off. I really need a new one; are they
for sale?
RobertB - Hey, the badge is there to show our
solidarity in Commodore! I used to sell the replica
badges for $3 each at shows, but now I just give
them away. I'll give you another one.
CF - Videos and pictures of many Commodore
events are credited to you. Can you tell our readers
why?
RobertB - 1 started taking photos and videos of the
shows in the late 1990's. First and foremost, they
were a record to which I could refer when I needed
information. Then I found out that other people
wanted to see the photos. Not having a personal
website, I relied on the kindness of others to host the
photos, especially our club treasurer who has put up
many of the photos at his website. In the late 90's
and early 2000's, when anyone wanted a copy of the
show videos, I would transfer them to VFIS tape, Beta
tape, and later DVDs for a nominal cost (a dollar or
two to cover the cost of the tapes, some cents to
cover the cost of DVDs, and a few dollars more to
cover postage and to put into the FCUG treasury). I
think the most we have ever sold was 10 sales at one
time. Who would have known back in the those early
days that there would be video-sharing websites on
the Internet now? (I didn't know back then, and so,
you can hear my comments and other utterances
while I was taping. Nowadays, I'm much more
careful.)
There are those who want me to put all the videos up
on the Web now. Flowever, as I have explained
before to such people, I only have a dial-up
connection at my house, and at work the school
district would take a very dim view of me uploading
hours and hours of video on their work computers.
For my friends or those who buy the videos, I am not
loath to them putting up the videos on the Net. In my
circumstances, I myself just can't do it.
Just recently, Ian Matthews of Commodore.ca and
Dave Flaynie (former Amiga engineer who runs his
own video production company) have been kind
enough to post some of my videos but not all. They
ask; I can provide. If they don't ask, then I don't force
any more videos upon them.
CF - What Commodore machines do you own and
use?
RobertB - Too many! I have my main C128DCR set¬
up, several back-up C128DCRs, a couple of SX-64s
(one highly modded), a few Plus/4s (NTSC and PAL),
a few VIC-20s, several brown and cream C64s
(NTSC and PAL), a PET 2001, a PET 4032, a couple
of PET 8032s, a 64GS, a C128D (plastic, PAL), an
Argentinian Drean C64C, a calculator or two, many
different drives including CMD, C64 DTVs (NTSC
and PAL, unmodded and modded), Flummer DTVs,
CommodoreOne, Amiga 1000s, 500s, 2000s, an
A3000, an A4000, and an AmigaOne.
CF - Do you own any other "non" Commodore
machines ?
RobertB - 1 own various classic game consoles - two
Intellivision Ms, a Colecovision, a Nintendo
Entertainment System (8-bit) , and the one which I
constantly feed with homebrew games, the Vectrex.
I also have a 1978 Star Trek pinball arcade machine
and am looking for a Star Trek: Strategic Operations
Simulator electronic arcade machine and the 1991
Star Trek 25th anniversary pinball machine. In the
collection, there's also a Texas Instruments TI-99 for
which I have the Star Trek: SOS cart (it talks!) and an
Apple IIGS computer.
The IIGS has had an interesting history. Other than
myself who has kept 8-bit computers in the
classroom, one of the veteran science teachers at my
school kept Apple M's in the his room, long past the
time when other rooms and labs had switched to
Windows computers. Fie used Apple lie's, a lie, and
a GS. Flowever, by last June, he had dumped all the
Apples onto the sidewalk; he was replacing them with
slightly newer Mac LC's and Power Macintoshes
(formerly used by the school, too). The school
janitors hauled away the remains of the Apples, but I
was able to rescue the GS, due in no small part to
what Jeri Ellsworth said to me, i.e., that a GS is a
great computer. When I got to show her the GS haul,
she was amazed that it even included an accelerator
card. She said that all I have to do is find a hard
drive for it.
As you can see, in terms of 8-bit computer longevity
in the class, the Commodore and I have even won
out over the Apple II and the science teacher.
CF - Tell us about Star Trek. What is the link with
Commodore?
RobertB - Star Trek has had a long history with
Commodore. Before Commodore was in the
computer biz, Star Trek games were played on
mainframe computers in universities. Back in the
mid-1970's, fellow students invited me to go to the
computer center at the University of California in
Davis and get onto the terminal of the mainframe in
order to play Star Trek. Too bad I never had the time
because of my English studies!
Then when the Commodore PET came out, William
Shatner, Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame, started
advertising for it. I didn't know it at the time. When
www.commodorefree.com
the Commodore VIC-20 came out in the early 1980's,
I may or may not have seen the television
commercial starring the good captain. He also did
print advertisements for the VIC-20.
With the release of the C64, there were several Star
Trek games developed, many looking like or
improving upon the old mainframe ST games. I
thought that it was a marvel that the VIC-20 and the
C64 had the Star Trek: Space Operations Simulator.
Based on the arcade game of the same name, these
8-bit versions had the same, revolutionary, 3-
windowed screen of the arcade version, minus the
vector graphics and certain sounds.
Star Trek games continued being developed, e.g.,
there was Star Trek: 25th Anniversary for the Amiga
1200/4000.
These days I still enjoy the Commodore/Star Trek
connection. As a member of Shatner & Friends,
International, we get to meet with William Shatner
once a year, have lunch and/or dinner with him, and
follow him in his activities, like attending a filming of
his t.v. show, Boston Legal, or going to the
Hollywood Charity Horse Show and banquet which
he hosts. And every year I've brought a Commodore
item for Bill to autograph - first a 1581, then a VIC-
20, the next year a Commodore telephone, another
year C64 DTVs, last year a Star Trek: SOS cart and
a Star Trek: 25th Anniversary package. This year I
was thinking of bringing him a PET 2001 keyboard
(but not the entire case!) and a SX-64.
Then there is the long-planned Star Trek game that I
want to create on the Commodore or on the Amiga.
Being no programmer, I would do such a game with
the Shoot 'Em Construction Kit. Yes, get it made the
down-and-dirty way! I've already planned a
storyboard for it; now where did I put it?
CF - Would you like to comment on what you think
went wrong with Commodore? If Commodore did
make a comeback, what should they make and sell
and why?
RobertB - I don't like to speculate on what
happened to Commodore Business Machines nor on
what would have been if CBM were to have gone a
certain way. I find it fruitless to be involved in such
sort of imaginings... kind of like political discussions...
nothing is ever decided, but the argument continues
ad infinitum. I was never a part of the internal
workings of CBM and thus cannot truly say what
went wrong. All I can say is that parent company
support for Commodore and Amiga computers was
never really there and that third party companies and
the users were the people who kept the C= dream
alive.
As for a return of CBM, that would be more
speculation but one on which I will comment briefly.
In order to stay profitable, such a returning company
would need products that would sell well and sell
consistently. Would those products support our
legacy computers or even be new versions of our
legacy computers? It would be nice to think so, but
as products that sell well and consistently, no. The
company would have to have a product or products
that would be the core business, and hopefully, the
company would have the money to then produce
legacy products that satisfy us legacy users. Such a
company would have to have deep pockets to afford
such market risks. At the end of its product lifespan,
the C64 had less than $5 of parts and was selling at
$90 retail. Jeri Ellsworth has mentioned that the C64
DTV had less than $8 or $9 of parts and was selling
for $30 retail, with 600, 000 produced and 100,000 of
the Hummer DTVs produced. If you do the math,
you are talking of large amounts of money and big
production runs. Would such a company expose
itself to satisfy legacy users? That is the question.
Let's take it a different way. Mammoth Toys
produced the C64 DTV and the Hummer DTV. When
she worked for Mammoth, Jeri proposed a $40-45
laptop computer, ostensibly marketed to children,
based on the DTV ASIC chip. Think of it... a new
C64-compatible computer! Mammoth turned down
her proposal.
CF - Commodore Gaming. Would you like to
comment on this venture?
RobertB - When I've tried to contact them after the
Commodore Gaming Party of July 2007, they've
either been extremely slow to respond or haven't
responded at all. Though the company does not
really support our legacy computers, I have nothing
against them, and I wish them the best in their
ventures. At least they have a C64 emulator and a
selection of games in their Windows gaming
computers.
CF - Many items of Commodore hardware are now
failing for users (due to the age). What would you do
if all your machines and hardware suddenly stopped
working.
RobertB - Ha, that would take a long time, because
I have plenty of C= systems in storage. Also with
repair craftsmen as Ray Carlsen and Charles
Gutman, any repair needs are satisfied. As for
Amiga computers, that is more difficult - fewer
systems in storage but thankfully there is a
repairperson in the TOGA club.
CF - Commodore is available in an emulated format
on various systems. Would you like to comment on
emulation?
RobertB - I've seen a few emulators running on
Windows, Mac, and Amiga computers. They are
interesting, but they are not for me. I prefer to use
the real thing. However, there are those who are big
into emulators, and if it fits their needs, then more
power to them.
CF - Have you any projects in the works or
meetings/conventions you will be shortly attending?
Would you like to promote any meetings/conventions
users can attend?
RobertB - Naturally, there are the monthly FCUG
meetings that I have to attend. In addition, I try to get
to the TOGA meetings, though those are about 3
hours away. Then there are the bi-monthly SCCAN
meetings, and those are less than 3 hours away.
I have a slew of events that I've attended or will
attend this year - just one in the Midwest United
States this year, because all monies are being
devoted to Europe and the events over there. First
up was the small MossyCon 4 in Astoria, Oregon on
March 16. Then there was the BlockParty 2008 in
Cleveland, Ohio on April 4-6. I'm going to try to make
it to the June 13 South Essex Amiga Link meeting in
Wickford, England. Then I will be at the Netherlands
Commodore Show in Maarssen on June 21 (I've
been asked to give a presentation.). There is a
Issue 19 May 2008 page -18 -
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tentative Commodore Scene meeting in Bradford,
England, but the June or July date for that has not
been finalized. Then I'll be at the Monastery Party
2008 in Opava, the Czech Republic on June 28-29.
After that is the Diengestraff Commodore meeting in
Bochum, Germany on July 1. A few days later I'll be
at the Amigaclub meeting in Antwerp, Belgium on
July 5. On July 27-28 there is the Commodore
Vegas Expo which is hosted by our club and the
Clark County Commodore Computer Club of Las
Vegas, Nevada. In October I'll be at the AmiWest
Show in Sacramento, California. The final show of
2008 for me will be the Vintage Computer Festival
11.0 the first weekend of November in Mountain
View, California.
CF - Some Commodore users are very passionate to
the point they almost reject other users who don't
know as much. Can you comment?
RobertB - 1 suppose you are speaking of the “elite”
or the elite wannabes. They are totally opposite of
what I try to promote; they want to exclude people; I
want to include people. As Commodore chairman
Jack Tramiel said, “Computers for the masses, not
the classes”. The elite take it upon themselves to set
up a class of people who are above everybody else.
CF - Why would users reject others with less
knowledge? Shouldn't we all stick together in the
common cause?
RobertB - In the elite mentality, such people think of
themselves as being too good, at a higher plane than
all others. Haven't done a demo? Then you are not
elite. Haven't programmed? Then you are not elite.
Haven't cracked a game? Then you are not elite.
Then there are the cyber-bullies. Unfortunately, the
Commodore community has them, too. Whereas,
the elite tend to ignore those who don't meet their
standards, these cyber-bullies like to socialize and
get their jollies by fear, intimidation, threats, and
insults. The unmoderated C= newsgroups have
them; the C= chat rooms have them. The cyber¬
bullies reject others, because they want to feel
superior, to feel in control. These cyber-bullies love
to corner a victim, and they are most obsessive in
causing emotional pain to their victim. They revel in
wreaking havoc; they are quite proud of their dubious
accomplishments. Sorry to say but these people
have severe behavioral problems. Best thing to do is
to ignore them but document everything they say.
Maybe one day, there will be laws to curtail the worst
of their behavior.
CF - People now see $$$$ with anything
Commodore related. I have been asked to remove
game pictures because of copyright infringements.
Would you like to comment on this?
RobertB - Well, I think that is just silly. If we are
talking about classic game photos and screen
captures, I do not see the harm in these showing off.
My question is how do other magazines get past this
copyright quagmire, e.g., what does RetroGamer
magazine do? RetroGamer is full of photos and
screen caps of classic games.
CF - How do you rate Commodore Free magazine?
RobertB - Commodore Free is good and getting
better! The variety of articles is nice to have. Some
detailed proofreading is needed. Run those articles
through a spellchecker or have a real person (an
English teacher?) find the typos.
CF - I know you are a friend of Allan from
www.commodorescene.org.uk Allan had to close
the magazine due to lack of subscribers. Personally,
I miss the magazine, and it's why I started
Commodore Free.
RobertB - Thank you for publishing Commodore
Free. An English language C= magazine is
necessary, because the German language
magazines just aren't enough.
CF - Allan owes users a large amount of money -
taken from users in order to buy CMD products from
Maurice Randall. Now 3 years later, these readers
are demanding a refund due to the time it's taken.
Maurice seems to have gone quiet and refused to
answer Allan's emails for a refund. So, Allan has had
to refund from his own pocket.
RobertB - I was truly sad when I found out that
information. Not only did Allan close out Commodore
Scene because of the subscriber situation but also
because of the customer refunds he has had to make
due to Maurice not sending him any CMD products. I
commend Allan on his diligence in making good on
his customer refunds, especially since he has a wife
and children to support.
CF - Do you think someone, like Jens Schoenfeld,
should offer to bail out CMD www.cmdrkey.com ?
RobertB - As I have mentioned to others in our club,
Creative Micro Designs does not need bailing out.
Maurice has manufacturing and distribution rights to
CMD hardware and software, but CMD still owns the
copyrights/patents. When Maurice took over the
above rights, he mentioned at a convention that he
had to pay a hefty monthly fee to CMD for those
continuing rights. When Maurice bought those rights
and the C= inventory of CMD, the price was $17,000.
Whoever wants to take over those rights would not
only have to negotiate with Maurice but also with
CMD.
CF - Maurice seems to be a great guy, keen to help
everyone, and I think he has bitten of more than he
can chew. Would you comment?
RobertB -- When I've met him at conventions, he
was always affable, and in past years he was helpful
on the C= mailing lists, forums, and newsgroups. He
hasn't made a public appearance since the Louisville
Spring Expo of 2005. I do not know the exact story
on why Maurice is not distributing CMD products, and
I don't like speculating on this situation.
CF - Would you like to comment on the C=One
machine and on the DTV?
RobertB - Oh, each one of those would be a
massive story! I'll limit my response to the current
state of each system. The CommodoreOne started
life as a brilliant idea; however, its execution was
damaged by greed and short-sightedness. In order
to save a few Euros per board and thus increase
profits, the board was cost-reduced to being
handicapped. What was eventually produced was
not what Jeri Ellsworth envisioned. It is now a board
short on FPGA space, a board patched with soldered
wires to make it work, a board that cannot contain the
super Cl core that Jeri planned. In a surprising
statement about what the Cl had become, Jeri said
to me, “The CommodoreOne is crap.”
Issue 19 May 2008 page -19 -
www.commodorefree.com
Finally, in 2006, Jens Schoenfeld tacitly admitted that
the Cl was in need of a FPGA overhaul so that
development could continue on the super Cl core
and other cores. Fie would produce a FPGA
“extender” board, and it would be sold for 99 Euros.
However, late in 2007, thinking that such an extender
board wouldn't sell, Jens pulled back on the idea of
producing such a cure for the Cl. Thus, we are back
to square one, back to the year 2002 in which the Cl
has been stuck.
The C64 D7V 30-games-in-one joystick also started
life with much promise; its eventual execution was
damaged by greed and short-sightedness, too.
Though ostensibly a toy, Jeri Ellsworth had slyly
convinced the producers that including many
Commodore features would not cost them another
cent. To those in the know, the C64 DTV could be
converted back to a computer with enhanced
features. It sold well. However, the partner company
that paid Jeri for the DTV wanted more. They
refused to pay Jeri her royalty per DTV joystick, citing
that the DTV was losing money! Though it was
supposedly losing money, they still wanted Jeri to
continue work on the DTV ASIC chip so they could
make a new run of DTVs, possibly with 100 games in
the joystick. Without being paid her royalties from
the first production runs of the C64 DTV and the
Hummer DTV game console, Jeri refused to work on
any more modifications and sued the partner
company. The lawsuit dragged on for months, with
Jeri spending quite a bit of money out of her pocket
in order to pay her lawyers to pursue the case. In the
end, the partner company conveniently
“disappeared”; there was no company left for Jeri to
sue. Jeri did not receive her royalties; the C64 DTV
never would have another production run.
CF - Do you think Jeri Ellsworth's creation of the DTV
and work on the C=1 computer has raised
awareness of the Commodore brand again?
RobertB - It has made certain people aware of the
Commodore again. With only over 100 Cl boards
sold, the public impact was miniscule. With over
700,000 C64 DTVs and Hummer DTVs sold, the
general public's consciousness of the Commodore
brand shot to the forefront for a short whi le. When
the C64 DTV started selling on November 26, 2004
at midnight Eastern Time on the QVC shopping t.v.
network, QVC received call after call live on-air from
people around the U.S.A. who said they remembered
the original C64 and wanted to have that same
gaming experience with the DTV. The network did a
stellar job at promoting it, advertising it, and selling it
quickly.
These days with no new production runs of the DTV,
with no presence on the store shelves, the general
public has forgotten about it. Time after time at
shows where we have a club table and where we
display Commodore items including the DTV, people
would come up to me and ask if they could buy the
display DTV or ask where they can buy such an item.
Now I have to tell them that the most common place
is eBay.com.
CF - And with this new awareness do you think
people who once owned/loved Commodore
machines are "coming back" as it were to the C=
community?
RobertB - This brief surge in awareness brought
about by the DTV has brought the hardware hackers
into the fray. The DTV board has been used to
replace C64 original motherboards, has been housed
in miniature game consoles, and has even been
turned into a handheld computer with its own LCD
screen. The ingenuity of such hardware hackers is
quite amazing when you see some of the products
they develop just based on the DTV board. With the
hardware hacking has come the software hacking of
the DTV; various utilities, modded games, and even
demos are available for it.Yet, this flurry of DTV
hardware and software hacking has quieted down
now that the DTV is no longer readily available.
CF - If you had 1 million pounds, what would you do?
RobertB - That would be 2 million dollars or so,
based on today's exchange rates! Well, if I had such
a large amount of money, I would pay off my credit
card debts, invest some of the money, spread some
of the money to the family, donate to charities, pick
up a few high-priced Star Trek souvenirs, get some
more storage for Commodore and Amiga stuff, and
fund some Commodore projects. In the past, I've
funded some C= companies and projects, and with
that much money, I could fund more. For example,
long ago Jeri Ellsworth mentioned a CommodoreTwo
project, a new board that would be free of the faults
of the Commodore One, a board that would be
manufactured here in America, because she found
out it would be more economical to do it here. The
Commodore Two would be built the way Jeri meant
the original C-One to be - no shortcuts, no cost-
reduced components but the best components in
order for Jeri to work her C= magic on it. She would
be given free reign to design it and not a limited
voice. She would have the time, the resources, and
the money to accomplish her goal.
CF - Is there any question you would have liked to
have been asked and why?
RobertB - The general state of Commodore
programming and user groups here in the states.
Why? Because I see a slow but steady decline in
activity. When I review my articles from the late
1990's and the early 2000's, there was so much more
C= energy to report. Over the years, Maurice
Randall and Todd Elliott, the best GEOS/Wheels
programmers, have disappeared. Jim Butterfield,
fabled C= programmer, died in 2007. No new
development on WiNGs, the C64 multi-tasking
operating system requiring a SuperCPU. Loadstar
disk magazine is published irregularly, and it will only
have a limited run until its final issue at #255 or #256.
Genie, Delphi, and CompuServe, and their dedicated
C= areas are gone. Few new demos from the NTSC
groups, though individual demosceners go on.
As reported above, where there used to be several
C= clubs in California; we are now down to one with
another one trying to get off the ground. Where there
used to be several in Oregon, they are now down to
one. The same in Washington state. One in
Nevada. One in Colorado. None in Arizona. The
clubs that still survive do so due to the determination
of a few. If it weren't for ACUG chancellor, Dave
Mohr, that Astoria, Oregon club would fold. If it
weren't for 5C's president, Al Jackson, that Las
Vegas, Nevada club would have a hard time staying
together. Several times, our treasurer has told me
that if I weren't president of FCUG, our club would
have closed some time ago. With older members
passing away or moving away, all the clubs are
having or will have a more difficult time staying
together.
CF - Robert, thanks for your time and commitment.
Issue 19 May 2008 page - 20 -
www.commodorefree.com
http://www.redesign.sk/tnd64/music scene.html
Created by Richard Bayliss
with Special thanks to Rio / Rattenrudel
Commodore Free would like to thank Richard Bayliss
for his permission to reprint this guide Many users
would like to make more of there machines, we all
have various talents and if you felt inspired to create
music on a Commodore 64 where would you begin,
in this guide you are lead through the various
options, for creating music with versions of DMC
music editor
Commodore Free
The Guide has been broken down in sections the first
part will cover as highlighted the disk image that
accompanies this series is available from here
www.redesiqn.sk/tnd64/DMC%20Music%20Editors%
5BTND%5D.zip
the disk contains
DMC V2.1 (GRAFFITY), DMC V4.0 (GRAFFITY) +
Docs (By Richard), DMC V5.0, DMC V5.0+
(CREAMD/C64.SK), DMC V5 PACKER, DMC V5.0
SCANNER and DMC V7.0 (GRAFFITY+UNREAL)
1 Introduction 1.1 Preface 1.2 DMC Versions
2 Getting Started with DMC 4 or 7 2.1 Main Menu
2.2 Sound Editor 2.2.1 ADSR
1 Introduction
1.1 Preface
1.2 DMC Versions
2 Getting Started with DMC 4 or 7
2.1 Main Menu
2.2 Sound Editor
2.2.1 ADSR
2.2.2 Wavetable
2.2.3 Pulse/PWM
2.2.4 Filter
2.2.5 Vibrato
2.2.6 FX
2.3 Filter Editor
2.3.1 Parameters
2.3.2 Filter Envelope
2.4 Track Editor
2.4.1 Channels
2.4.2 Options
2.4.3 Commands
2.5 Sector Editor
2.5.1 Options
2.5.2 Commands
2.5.3 Time Control
2.5.4 Global Filter and Pulse
2.6 Quick Recaps and Examples
2.7 Packer
2.8 Relocator
3 Getting Started with DMC 5
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The Sound Editor
3.3 Making your Drumkit
3.4 Making your first piece of music
3.5 The Other Bitz!
3.6 Packing your Music
1 Introduction
1.1 Preface
Richard's Preamble:
Welcome to the 'Music Scene' tutorials. All the
resources are my and rio's work - previous versions
are appeared in Commodore Scene. We start from
the BASICS to the advanced music composing using
my favourite music composer, which is Graffitys'
Demo Music Creator V4.0.
Rio's Preamble:
Regarding to Richard's welcome, i want say hello too.
Inspired by Richard's DMC tutorial and my own
experience using that editor, i was motivated enough
to update and to overwork the article completly (with
detailed chapters and some artwork too). I added a
table of content and as well as further infos and
knowledge about using SID and DMC 4 and 7 (that's
my fav editor). Some chapters are united by richard's
and my work, so that people, who want to start
composing in these days have a compact
documentation about one of the best editors for
Commodore 64.
Why we do this?
Because we have fun making music on a C64,
sharing some knowledge about Editors which are use
the unique SID synthesizer for composing tunes.
What you need for using DMC?
You can start with a real Commodore 64 with 6581 or
8580 SID in it (you will need some storing hardware
too, like floppies etc.) or an emulator like VICE or
something else, which can manage disk commands
and sid emulation etc. Notice that there is a
difference between the SID types. More details will
be given in the chapters below. Notice as well, if you
use an emulator, there will be another key
assignment. Please read about the emulations
software for yourself. The whole tutorial will be
referenced to original C64 keyboard assignment.
Further you should know something about bits and
bytes. A understanding for hexadecimal number
system will be necessary. But for those, who don't
know: It's a number system with a cardinal number of
16 (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F). So every
parameter or counter have to write down as a
hexadecimal number. Parameter or command in this
documentation will be described with variables, like:
SND.xx
or
FX: xy
If there are two x variables - a 8 Bit parameter will be
expected. If i talk about x and y variable, then two 4
Bits (nibbles) parameter will be expected. In some
cases x and y represent a state of a flag for each
parameter (e.g. FX, Waveforms). Then every bit of a
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 21 -
www.commodorefree.com
byte (8 Bits) can be set for a specific state. For
example, if we want to change Bit 0 (it's first
position), we write a 01 as hexadecimal number. If
we want to change Bit 1 and Bit 2 we write down a
06, because 0110 (bin) is representing a 6 in
hexadecimal system. If you have some special
comments or annotations, we are pleased if you add
your queries in TND forum.
1.2 DMC Versions
The predecessor of DMC is the GMC - Game Music
Creator, written by Brian of Graffity. You will find
some similar elements in that editor too, but the
following DMC versions are more improved. The way
of DMC development (2,4,5,6,7) was accompanied
by several groups and is at least mainly split in two
programs: DMC 4 and 5. Some groups have done
modifications in both DMC version, so you will find a
mass of different releases. Most of them should
never be spreaded. DMC 7 (by unreal) was using the
code of DMC 4 and it's fitted out with some special
functions. So the first tutorial part is for up for both
versions.
2 Getting Started with DMC 4 or 7
So many people in the C64 scene uses DMC 4 and
we are two of them. Well, if you were expecting the
old Music Scene by Andrew, think again. This is
because Richard has decided to take over 'Music
Scene' and now i (rio) have updated the whole
tutorial (Richard hopes Andrew didn't mind).
We have decided to teach you all howto turn
yourselves into cool C64 music composers. For
those of you who are interested in learning to use
DMC 4, we'll be teaching you howto compose, using
sid fx's and dmc commands. You will gain a small
amount of knowledge about synthesizers and of
course using Commodore 64 SID chip for your own
style of music. Anyway, let's forget all this nitty gritty
and get on with some serious experimenting. The
DMC 4 and 7 player has various options and editors,
which can help you create your own demo songs by
using the 3 Channels of SID. You can even use up to
8 different tunes in one file, by using tune switching.
Furthermore DMC 4/7 allows you to monitor playing
notes in 'LIVE PLAY SYNTHESIZER' Mode (listen to
notes, by touching keys) and to record sequences’ in
a time-dependent'RECORD MODE'. Direct
Monitoring (VOICE ON/OFF) allows you to listen to
everything you tap in. DMC 7 is fitted up with a trace
play mode.
If you start the editor, it will look something like this:
2.1 Main Menu
The DMC has various menu options involved. There
are sound and filter editors, a music setup, a disk
menu (or I/O menu) and different player setups. By
pushing <— (DMC 4) or CTRL (DMC 7) you will get
into the main menu. Use the CRSR keys to highlight
an option, use RETURN to choose one.
The Sound Editor is for creating your instrument set.
The filter editor is for editing filters, which can be
assigned to a special instrument from Sound Editor.
In music setup (tune setup) the global speed and
global volume can be defined. Activating the disk
menu or I/O menu will switch into file operating
menu, where you can load and store your tunes or
use some Commodore DOS commands. In most
DMC versions are different player routines
integrated. You are able to choose a player (e.g. A or
B). Some are better in quality, others have a better
raster timing.
2.2 Sound Editor
First of all, you need to build the instruments yourself.
Highlight the 'Sound Editor' option in main menu.
Okay, now take a look at the image below. It shows
you what the Sound Editor looks like. If we go the
first time in the Sound Editor the first instrument will
be choosen automatically. Watch out after SND: xx
parameter at the right-upper corner, xx shows the
current selected instrument number. Up to 23
instruments are possible (16h), which we can select
with + / - keys. You are also be able to copy and
paste instruments by pushing: f Arrow (Copy - part of
the screen flicker in green) and @ (Paste - part of the
screen flicker in red). The TRO: Ox value below,
represents the transpose of a playing test note (C-x)
by pushing space. The tone transpose can be
selected with SHIFT_R and + / -. As you can see, the
sound data are full of zeroes, therefore there is no
sound. Press space to test the sounds, you cannot
hear the sounds at all, due to no data.
If you want to change a parameter, you can
select it by using CRSR keys Left and Right.
To set up a parameter, simple press a key
(0..F). Possible properties for an instrument in
the Sound Editor are as follows
ADSR: OOEA
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT MONTH...
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 22
www.commodorefree.com
In the Beginning Part 4
By Lord Ronin from Q-Link
Had some fun with the keys, and played
some with the colours. A good part of that is
from the manual. Just presented a bit
differently <weirdly>than the manual. Most
Basic books that I have seen do about the
same income form. Now lets go into some of
the features from the manual.
thing is that there is
more power in the 64
than in that machine and
the 64 is faster. OK it is
one hell of a lot friendlier
and fun to use.
What I want you to do
now is do a little screen
typing in the start of
programming. Don't
freak out. I'm telling you
in advance that this is a
sort of programming.
Book doesn't do that, it
sneaks it upon you. Oh
right I forgot to say
earlier. Why yes, you
can programme, code, or
just plain write your own
programmes for
whatever you want on
the C=64. Books and
magazines that came out
where full of these, and it is how many people
learned to programme. Who today are in
computer fields on other platforms. Good
news for you is that I am not at that or even
near any aspect of that level of programming.
I am just a user and lamer programmer.
This first stuff is going to sound and seem
lame. At least to today's readers. Remember
the time that this was written and for the
people at that time. We are going to start with
one of the most commonly used terms in
Basic, PRINT. Correct that is the term and for
this moment in time. Consider that is exactly
what it does. As I understand it is a bit of a
hang over from the early days of Basic back in
the 60s. Where when you said PRINT. That is
what happened. The stuff
printed out on paper.
May sound weird to you. But
there weren't really anything
that looked like a monitor in
those days. Well what we
today would consider a
monitor. My class in the
computer language FORTRAN
in 1974ce, in college. Well it
was done on punch cards that
was fed into some monster of
a hopper. Big reels of
magnetic tape spun and a
gigantic printer would print out
the result on fan fold paper.
Oh yeah and the room that all
of this was in, well it was as
sterile and clean as possible.
Being a slob, it really irked me
to be in that room. Funny
OK here is what to do. Type on the screen as
follows.
PRINT"SMEG HEAD" Well you can type
anything you want. Just make sure you have
the word PRINT and what you want in the
quotations. Now press RETURN. Using my
example you should see on the screen.
PRINT"SMEG HEAD"SMEG HEAD
***** COMMODORE G4 BASIC U2 ****
G4K RAM SVSTEM 38311 BASIC BYTES FREE
READY.
PRINT 11 S MEG HE AD"SMEGHE AD
SMEG HEAD 0
READY.
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READY<cursor sitting here>
If you see the scary words of 7SYNTAX
ERROR. Check to see if you have the quotes
correctly. Also see if there is anything else on
that line. Like other text or graphics.
Computers deal with math. At least we don't
have to worry about that mess of binary and
other forms of math. But now you get to turn
the C=into a big calculator. I'll tell out his
point, that I had a LED digital watch that did
most of the same math functions. But this
point will show you the math part that you can
use, straight or in programming. Type the
following.
PRINT 15 + 15 <press return>
You should see a 30 right under the PR in the
word print. At this point you can try more
numbers. Big ones, little one and several of
them at once, rather than just two. Just press
return at the end of the list of numbers. As
you can guess by now you can also do
subtraction. Same as above but with the -
symbol. Yeah you can do multiplication. This
uses the * symbol. Division uses the/ symbol.
Examples follow <G>
PRINT 15 + 15 + 35 + 16.89+.11
PRINT 300-150
PRINT 25*4
PRINT 10/5
Basic 4 parts of math. But the crippled
handed old man is also lazy. Meaning that
typing PRINT each time is a bore. Good news,
there is a short cut. Just type ?.
715 + 15
is the same as
PRINT15+15
Now a word on what you have seen. Most
programmers do it the way that I have placed
above. Book shows it as follows PRINT 15 +
15. Each of those spaces do take up memory
space in the computer. You can type about
80characters in a programme line. No spaces
keep it so you can have more characters in
the programming line. This will make more
sense later on.
A thing that you may not ever need in your
entire use with the C=, comes next.
EXPONENTIATION, this is the ability to raise a
number by a power. Ok more simply stated,
you can square or cube a number. Try this
one...
?2~2 <two to the second power or two
squared> Press return. Now go ahead and try
other number like 727^34. OK that is a bit of
fun, and I have not ever really needed it in my
work. But it is a feature of the C=64.
However the next part I have used a lot.
Since I have that useless degree in
electronics. This is Scientific Notation. On the
C= it is read this way, 1.76E+9. Basically this
means that there is a total of 9 places to the
right of the decimal point. A way of writing
very large numbers in a small space. 1.76E-9
would be, right negative numbers. You may or
may not need this for your work. All the math
operations will work with this form.
Manual does go into the idea of precedence.
Or the order in which math functions' are done
in formulas. I'll take it that you read this sort
of stuff before, or can access it in some way.
So we can bypass it for now.Here is something
from the book that is interesting. Combining
some of the things that we have covered.
Type in
?"5+5 = ";5+5press return and you should
see...
5 + 5 = 10
And now lets stop for a bit. Take a look at
where we are now at in the C=64. Because at
this point we are at the divergence.
Fancy words to mean that we are going to
move in more than one direction in this series.
Because the book goes one way and you may
not want to go that way. To make myself
clearer, the book goes into the rank
beginnings of programming. Great for those of
you that want to learn some level of Basic v2
programming. However, not everyone is
interested in learning to programme. Some
people like a little understanding of
programming.
Perhaps to appreciate the work done to create
the programme. Others, sure want to learn
everything about programming and start right
off. But there is a large group even today that
just want to play with the C=64. Using
"canned" programmes for their interests. For
those readers, I am stopping the bookwork
and going into a bit of drivel about the C=64
programmes. Then I shall return to the
manual little programming items.
What do you want from the C=64? By that I
mean what you are going to do with it? Oh,
balance the cheque book, keep a journal of
important things, print out a calendar, learn
algebra, teach the little ones shapes and
colours and, well that goes on and on.
Naturally you want to play some sort of game
as well. Funny I have met only few people that
admit they have a computer to use for
different things, including game play.
Games are one of the most numerous
programmes for the C=64. Factory ,type in,
homebrew and the like. These range from
simple little guess the number game <we will
do that one from the manual> into 15+ disk
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side adventures, with graphics and sound.
Now I am not going to say what are the best
games. My opinion is mine and will most likely
not reflect our interests exactly. I like Role
Playing Games. Semi-enjoy strategy games,
get bored with card games, and loath text
adventures. Yet I know people that have the
reverse feelings.
What I intend to present here is some
comments about the games for the C=64.
Because from my experience over the years,
people have wrong ideas about the C=64
games. So lets jump in and get to it.
Most of the classifications of games that you
enjoy on consoles and computers, well they
were devised, developed and labelled on the
C=64.Many of them were also ported over to
other platforms. Examples would be Pool of
Radiance and Wasteland. The latter was made
for the IBM system and is on a CD of games
for it today. There is a yahoo group list for it
that deals with the different platforms for that
game. On the 64 it is just one double sided
disk of play. Don't think that you will finish it
in a day. Try weeks of playtime. There is just
so much to tryout in that game. Pool, was
ported to the Amiga PC platform. Heard of but
not seen copies for the IBM system. That is
the game that took me three weeks of 6 hours
a day, 6 days a week to complete.
Sid Meir's Pirates, also just called Pirates, is
another one that comes to mind. Commodore
to a game console to as I understand not only
an newer game console but a non C=
computer platform. Or at least that is the
impression I gained from a friends computer
game magazine.
Japanese game of Go is out there for the C=.
As are several types of chess games. One of
those even allows for different boards <1 like
the 3D one>and set up placement. Not a big
Chess player, OK, a lamer level chess player. I
think that the part about setting pieces is like
for those chess books, and moves that are in
the newspapers of my youth.
Card games explode with the C=64.0ne of
the first things I did from a type in book was a
simple card game. No graphic, only text. A
21,blackjack game. All the way into specific
graphics created images on the face cards. In
between are the simple ones just using the C=
graphics off of the keyboard for the cards.
Can't tell you the games. There are so many, I
mean a couple people used to make a few
card games each month for the disk magazine
loadstar <back issues are available from
loadstar>and this was done for several years.
Besides I am a dum ork and don't know that
many card games by name and or rules.
Board games, besides the above chess and go
are out there, or even in your collection.
Monopoly, official Parker Brothers one, and
those that are not exactly official. I like the
one that is London and the money is in BritCit
pounds. Clue is another game. Have to admit
that the game, on the disk, and I mean the
official game. Well it is a bit different than the
board game I played in the 60s. More rooms
and characters as I remember. Of course
there is an almost infinite list of these games.
Some that are computer board games. I didn't
know they where board games when I first
found them.
Sort of board but not exactly are a set of the
War games. Hard to explain these to the non
player and newbie C= user. Many are
simulations from Victory and or Avalon hill.
Nothing fancy in the graphics. Mostly a grid
looking thing and you command the forces.
Gotta tell you that I personally have problems
with this style. When you don't have the dox,
or instruction. A problem that I have on most
of the copies I have found. Anyway should say
that there are online preservation sites of the
manuals and dox for many of the
C=programmes. Themes for this are just
about any major battle of campaign in history.
But there is another style of this war game
theme. Perhaps not as historically accurate.
For my tastes ,a bit more fun. Not to say that
they are any easier. This style may have a
proper name, but I never learned it, so they
are sort of action simulations for a lack of the
proper word. In this type you are a more
integrated part of the war game. Dam Busters
is a great one for this. Doing an actual WW II
mission from the British. You are flying the
special bomber. Dodging enemy and yeah
there is also different views that you can
select. Right it is allin graphic. Some sound
effects as well. And no it isn't easy. I've never
finished it, well if I was the German side I won
<BG>.
There is even a game where you an explore
the Titanic on the floor of the sea. Pictures are
from the early remotes that Ballard did on the
wreck. A game where you can run a
submarine. The book or it says you can be
allied or German navy. But my used copy is
corrupted and never got to play it, need to
find are placement copy in some form.
Text adventures deserve to be mentioned by
themselves. First I must say that there are
two major types. One is just plain text, the
other is one that has text and some graphics.
The latter part being illustrated pictures on the
screen.
This type of game has its points and fans.
Also its drawbacks and detractors. There are
statements that this form of game was the
first style for computers and goes back to the
60s. I've read the stories about that in
different books and online. Today you may not
have a clue to what the game looks like or
how it functions. So I'll explain as best as
possible. First off I dislike these games with a
pink and purple passion. Good got that out of
my system. Lets move to the positive points.
This form of game was exceptionally popular
for the 8 bit realm of existence. True text
adventures are just that, they are nothing but
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text. All the sounds and pictures must come
from your mind.
OK I'll add that from some companies,
specifically one called Infocom, would add a
mess of props to the game box. I do have
some of these in my collection. In simple
terms you enter the game world. Read the
story line, then make certain choices at each
text entry. Things like picking up something,
going in a direction, using an item. Oh yeah
and looking/examining things in the area that
you are located.
An important thing to do in this game style is
to make a block map of your travels. Other
wise you will be lost and go in circles in the
game. Creating a gigantic sense of frustration
along with the feeling that the programmer
intentionally did this to you. <what he
d id n't?>
It has been said that a picture is worth a
thousand words. In programming it is worth a
lot more in memory space. That I guess is the
reason why text adventures where very
popular. Instead of having a mess of images
and sounds. A huge game world with twists
and complexities could be created. Letting you
paint the picture in your own mind. Sort of like
an interactive book I was told. Variations on
this would have perhaps an image and a
sound effect at a specific place in the story. I
have seen a couple that use what appear to be
C= coloured digital images. A few seconds of
sound to set the mood, and then back to the
text part of the game. Another version uses
just the C= keyboard graphics <gfx> for the
information. This type is in one of my type in
programming books for text adventure games.
In this example there is a keyboard command
that will show you a map. Displaying the areas
you have explored. All done with keyboard
graphics. A real big help in game playing for
Before I explain another type of text with gfx
game, and one that I can play. Must tell you
the down side to the stock text only game.
Trying to not wax on this too much on the
psych or cultural stuff. Big problem is "WHAT
ARE THE FRELLING WORDS?". OK some of the
games have a command called "VOCAB", or
something close to that type of word. Typing
that in will give you a list of the accepted
words for the game. Not all the games have
that option. Some do have a" HELP"
command. Again not all of them. Personally I
find my self lost early on in the games.
Because Haven't a clue as to what words to
use at that time. As an example the game Mist
from Infocom. That company was considered
to have the best text games.
My character is at the gates to the grounds of
the mansion. How-to get through the lock
gates on the stormy night. Understand that I
have the props for this game. I have the story
as well in the manual. Even a handful of the
words. Though Infocom had a way to use a lot
of words in their games. Took me hours of real
time to make it past that gate. Oh it was blow
the horn of the car. Like I would think of that
right off the bat? Not that it would be done,
but that it could be done in the game. BTW:
that was the first encounter in the game. I
never got past the second encounter.
Words, the right ones and their use is one of
the problems. Another is the right things to
do. That is naturally based on the authors
sense of values. But also the time frame of the
games creation. Sort of a time capsule of the
world. Some games of this nature use a bit of
the current pop fad language jargon in the
text. Not in what you need to type in, but in
the words that you read in the descriptions.
As you can tell I have problems with this sort
of game. But to be fair. I have met people
that love these games. They hunt to this day,
for ones that they have yet to play.
Now then there are two variations to this type
of game. These have actually gfx in them. One
has a static picture at the top of the screen.
Illustrating some point of the game. Based on
your location. There is a bit of descriptive text
at the bottom half. Now there is either a blank
line for you to enter the words. Or there is a
set of words for you to select. This type I have
played with some success, and remember
fondly the Lord of the Rings in this form. A
more advanced type is set up the same way.
Having the top part of the screen with the
scene. The bottom part with the words.
Maniac Mansion is the first one of this style
that I played. Difference here is that the top
screen is animated. In game play you move
the character around the screen(s) with the
joystick. At first you must select the team of
characters for the adventure. Done with the
joystick. Next you take them, one by one, to
the front of the mansion. Now to get in you
need to score the key from under the mat.
This requires looking around and reading the
text information that is presented.
Getting the clues for that action. But to do it,
you must select the action in a set of
commands at the bottom of the screen. You
can probably guess that I like this game. Well
I only finished it with the help of a couple of
walk troughs'. Like most of the games I have
experienced on the C=. They are more in
depth and take longer than expected.
Rest your eyes a bit. That is a lot of
information to digest as well. Point is to accept
and understand that there is a wide variety of
games. Asteroids, Defender, Mario Brothers
and more classic coin op arcade games. Like
Frogger, and Donkey Kong <ever find the
Donkey?>,Pac Man and the clever one called
Plaque Man that was a special dental care
game for kids. Well assuming I spelled it
correctly. Shoot' Em Up games. In fact there
is a construction set to make that type of
game. War games, and yes there is a
construction set to make them as well.
Adventure games, you know the type where
you explore the world, defeat the bad things
and eventually save the day.
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Yuppers there is a construction set to make
them as well. Oh I was just reminded that
some readers may not know what exactly is a
construction set. Simply stated it is a utility
tool. Which will allow you to create the above
types of games. Then pass them around to
your friends and others that use the C=. Yeah
a creative thing.
That brings me to other things the C= can do
for you. Besides the games. Quadratic
<spelling?> equations, may not be your bag.
But I had a programme that taught them to
you. In fact basic math into Geometry I have
on disks for the Commodore. Had one that
would teach you the bones of the body. Typing
of course, and that is one that I should really
use myself. Grammar, and that too is another
one that I should use myself. Have a few
English ones. Side note they specifically state
that they are Canadian English, not American.
I'll stop there with the educational
programmes.
Pretty much you name it, and there was
something for it on the C=. One part that I
will add. Some of these were adjustable. I
mean that if you wanted to say update the
information for the lessons. You could do that
in the programme.
Print Master+ & Print Shop, these are the two
most widely seen programmes for creating,
greeting cards, stationary, banners, calendars
and a bit more. Each one has additive disks to
the main programme. Adding more gfx, fonts
and borders for your use. There are some
others, but you see the point. We have three
voices and 9 octaves for the C=. Yes there are
programmes to create music on the C=. Many
hundreds of these where on Q-Link for free
download. I have an almost 2 mega byte file is
zip format of an unknown amount of the
songs. That a guy saved from Q-Link and sent
to me.
The News Room, that is a programme that
allows you to make your own newsletters.
Contains fonts and gfx images. The latter you
can alter a bit, or create your own. There are
a few additional disks of fonts and gfx that
you can pick up as well. I have most of this
set. Want to draw your own things? There is a
wealth of art programmes. No idea how many
are out there for you. However the most
popular ones that I know about and have used
are. Koala <which seems to have been a
standard hi-res art prg .Since it is used in a lot
of intro screen things> Blazing Paddles,
Animation Station, Doodle, FlexiDraw are the
ones that I have used. Koala and Animation
Station are both tablet style drawing
programmes.
There is a crack running around for Koala that
allows the use of a joystick over the tablet.
FlexiDraw has a mess of extra programmes,
that I have yet to use. Can be used with other
input devices. I though have only used it with
the light pen. Each of these has its own pluses
and drawbacks. As well as their dedicated
fans. All I can tell you is that I have seen
some really great art work. Nothing that I
could attempt to create myself.
Games, educational, creative programmes.
Those are just major category titles. Now
then, the thing that I do most of the time,
writing. Honestly I thought at first the
C=64would be a game machine for me. Ends
up I do more writing stuff than anything else
on it. No I am not going on about what to
write or how-to write. I am a rather poor
example of that stuff. Nor can I tell you which
is the best programme to use.
In fact since space is running out. All of that
will be in the next part. At this time I want to
impress on you that there is a gigantic amount
of programmes of an almost endless variety of
styles and subject matter for the C=. When
you add that people are still doing programme
writing on a 25+ year old PC. What else can
be created? Obviously not everything as of
yet. OK next session continues with the
programme overview and then back to simple
from the manual BasicV2 programming.
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MossyCon 4 Personal Review
Written by Lord Ronin from Q-Link
Edited by Robert Bernardo
“Da fullowin iz ritten da next murn and wth liddle sleep un nah coffeieeee yut.”
missed the bus from there to Astoria. #8 will have his
rants on that one I am certain. 'Cause I gots mine
{EG}.
Expected here at 9 pm Saturday night. Was not a
pleasant thing to see his nickname show up in the
chat around that time, as we were to burn the CDs
for MossyCon and he was going to show us how that
was done, plus a few other computer related
problems were to be rectified without Lord Ronin
(myself) using the ever-present big and heavy
hammer.
Between 9 pm-ish and 3 am, using Xchat for IRC
switching between screens, creating a minute
problem for #8's phone and having to recharge it, we
did burn the 10 CDs for the Con.
A lot of thanks go to #8 (supercommodore-
Destinedl/weirdwolf...) for taking all that time to work
with us on how to burn a smegging CD with this new
Linux flavour. Finding out that the CD/DVD burner
isn't working, and we had to replace it with the old
one from the previous set-up. Then, files that were
downloaded not installing for the burn, and I guess
those that use non C=64/128s are familiar with this
scenario a lot more than I.
Up at 10 am, or earlier. Coffee on the boil, cats
demanding food. Set-up time was to be 10 am at the
pizza place. Reminds me some or a few of us
attendees should send some letter of thanks in some
format to them. Well, at 12:10 pm, over an hour after
the event was to start and 2 hours after the set-up
time, no ride yet, and that was a bit worrisome, after
last year's medical problem for Robert. Worries
started to cross our minds. Nope, things were just
running a bit late. I called the pizza place... yeah, me
using a phone... hey, it was a real, rotary dial C=
phone. Talked to Gene Woods, who told me Robert
was on his way. Shortly after that, Robert was at the
shop.
Couple of bags of things from us, along with #30 and
myself, crammed into the boat of a car of Robert's.
Well, compared to those Tonka toys that are on
the road now, it has been called a boat, even if
the backseat hadn't been stacked with items.
Well, the interior of that car is made for Robert.
Not 6'2" me or 67" #30. And I hate seatbelts as
well. Oregon mandates the use of them. Political
rhetoric aside.
Stopping at the back boor of the pizza place, I
showed Robert the back way there (really, it is
legally highway 30) to avoid the centre of town
traffic. We off-loaded ourselves and the bags.
Now I must add here that through a
misunderstanding, we had previously collected a
supply of Amiga items. These were originally to
be for Robert. They were put in the
trunk and back seat. Want to thank Robert here
for being so understanding about the mix-up and
then seeing that many of the items were dupes
for his group and allowing us to keep those items
in order that we may start to rebuild the Amiga
section after the sho-vah stole the club's stuff.
There was a line of tables that held many items that
were just for the show. Robert had the one that Jack
Tramiel signed at the CMH event in December.
Really, that C=64 should have been under glass and
with an alarm system. An Amiga 4000 with several
autographs as well as al 28DCR keyboard also
autographed by some of the engineers.
A lovely presentation of a collage of the late Jim
Butterfield. Going past that to the right was a
collection of electronic controls that reminded me of
my homebrew days in electronics, though cleaner
and neater. This was connected to a SX-64. Along in
that area was a Lt. Kernal system that as I
understand has a few additives and is working. At the
end of the line past a FD-2000 was a VIC-20, for
which #30 and Steve Jones had to return to the shop
in order to replace the PS that went out on it.
But at the start of the line, right next to the back door
was a Commodore PET 2001. Not working and was
slated for Ray Carlsen for repair. Neither #30 or
myself had ever seen a real PET 2001 in real life
before. Now I understand the reason for the term that
was used to describe the keyboard. But hey for us
lefties, the cassette thing is on the left side of the
keyboard.
Met Steve Jones and a man whose name escapes
me, but I think it was Bilud, and his handle is
Nightlord. Wasn't his accent that tossed me as his
English is very good. But that it just had to happen
that day. Sinus problems blinded my left eye (I'm left¬
eyed dominant), and the ear infection returned so I
was deaf in the right ear. Plus I am horrible at
remembering names. There was also Gene Woods,
who has popped by the shop from time to time
seeing how things are going with us, even though it is
a few hundred miles and several hour drive for him.
Good that he could come to the event, as originally
that wasn't in the plans for his schedule. Bad that he
Sunday morn at 3 am. We are still on the phone with
our dedicated #8 (weirdwolf) who through the mega¬
graces of the bus system in the Portland Metroplex
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could come to the event, because his main schedule
got f relied.
Robert had set up a tab at the pizza place for us.
Didn't know that at the start. At the first, since most of
us had not met each other at least in real life, we sort
of just talked about ourselves and C= related things.
Had some pizza and drinks, mainly soda pop for the
group. Of course, I had to be different and have beer,
but as the oldest one there, I can be eccentric at
times (most of the time). Talked to Nightlord about
role-playing games. He had played some in the past,
2nd Edition AD&D, and I IRC he had done that in
college with friends in his native Turkey. I think that I
went overboard on the desires we have to create C=
RPG games and tools on the C= for RPG games, but
he did seem interested in the idea.
Wildstar arrived, having to walk over the hill, and it is
a mean hill; I can't do it anymore. Plus it was a nice
cool day with drizzle. OK, people from Southern
California may call it a rain, but those of us in the
Northwest would call it a light drizzle.
Did have the enjoyment of a couple of deer going
past the windows, as they came up from the bay and
back into the woods on the hill. Nice touch for the
day. Eventually, we had to settle down some time
around 2-ish. Nightlord (hope I have his handle
correct) did the first presentation. Now I couldn't hear
well so some others should go into this one. Also the
tech level was not the same as mine. In essence, he
created some demos in the scene which he had
shown earlier on a non C= laptop with the emulator.
Looked very good, and the speed was smooth. At
that time he was explaining many points of how it
was done. I caught the part of using the cpu and
mem in the 1541 at the same ti me things are being
done in the 64.
But that wasn't his main presentation. This was his
compiler thinggy; I can't do the name justice. So
basically, I can say that he has created a
Commodore C++ compiler. Does only work in
emulation for creation. But as I understand, the work
can be placed on stock 1541 disks. He knows his
tech and was presenting it well to those other
hardware people who asked some poignant
questions. MossyCon was honoured with the display
of a Tetris clone that runs at a good speed. Created
with this new compiler for us. Sadly, he could not
release it yet. Still working on the documentation first.
He wishes that to be done before the item is
released.
Next up was the fat, old, hippy freak. My presentation
was on the use of Geos, such as GeoWrite,
GeoPaint, GeoPub, PostPrint and GeoDos. In the
creation of the items that I was able to convert into
.pdf files and burn onto the CD. Only the burning and
the converting was done on the Linux system. The
rest, even the zipped .D64s, were done on the C=
with the SCPU. Passed out most of the CDs we had
made. Few games and a lot of the writings that I
have done for the group. Showed off the actual raw
96-page copy of a 1st ed AD&D adventure
completely created and printed on the C=.
SMJ (Steve) was up next. He described his Prophet
64 thing. Now I could follow some of this, because I
do have an ancient background in electronics and
once could play musical instruments. But there was
that hearing problem, and most of his presentation
had a crying baby and an irate child screaming in the
other part of the pizza joint. What I could see, and the
screen was on a SX-64, was a bit small for my eyes.
Well, the screen showed a lot of items that were to
me impressive. But the sounds that he was able to
create with his homebrew box and some other
modded electronics equipment, well, I have never
heard SID sound so clean... as if it was one of those
megabuck synthesizers. True, he had modded the
SX to be a stereo with two sid chips. Started off his
presentation with his laptop, where he had
documented in pix the different steps and alterations
of the SX-64. I could follow that part. But even deaf in
one ear, that sound was fantastic.
Robert followed with showing the different units that
he had brought. Starting with the PET and going
through the different autographed C= items. Now if I
had my own transport and could run fast enough, he
would have had less to take back with him {VBG}.
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 29 -
www.commodorefree.com
left out that there was a framed set of stamps. Robert
had sent a pic of Jeri to a place that places the image
on a real, usable, 41-cent USPS stamp. This one is
framed for display. He donated one sheet for the
raffle, and I understand another will be for another
con/expo raffle.
But for the actual hands-on work, we had to borrow
my SCPU in order to see the Metal Dust game. This
was placed on Robert's SX-64, the one that I would
like to liberate for the ACUG. I mean it does have in
the second drive bay a FD-4000. But I am addicted to
C=. By using a cord, this was able to be connected to
the 1702 monitor at the VIC-20. Not sure about the
entire game. Around three 1581 disks in a nice box.
Robert did state that it has a tendency to try to save
the high score, but when it does that, it smegs up a
file on the disk, and the game is dead. What I saw
with a couple of volunteers was a multi-colourful, fast,
sideways scroller. Spaceship shooting at the
asteroids and planetoids that race from the right side
of the screen. My working eye had trouble with the
background and the foreground. There is just so
much on the screen, at least seen about 7' away, that
I couldn't tell what was what. But I'll accept that the
eye problem was to blame.
Another hands on display was a set of finger
joysticks in a box. This is an actual C= game, from
about 1984 I IRC
what was on the paperwork. Does use a disk, and
one cannot use regular joysticks. I was struck at the
sight on the table of how the box and joysticks
reminded me of a RC plane set-up. Good thing I did,
as that is what this game is about. You are flying a
RC model plane. Well, the testers did give it a try.
High marks for innovative crashing all around. {LOL}
Last in that demo presentation was the VIC-20.
There was one cart that had I IRC 38kb or ram, but a
switch out of the three broke off, cancelling that one.
But we did see and play with the 100+ games in one
cart for the VIC-20. Ah, no one got even close to
finishing the first level of Donkey Kong, and playing
Congo Bongo with the keyboard was a bit hard,
though there is a joystick options.
One last thing, and it is out of place in the demo part.
Robert showed off the new MMC2IEC I IRC it is
called. He had both sets, but lost his PS unit for the
display. I was impressed at not only the fact that here
is another new piece of C= related Hardware, but
looking at what appeared to be a micronised
DreamCast memory cart and finding it was at least a
gig in size. Then learning that one can place 1541s
onto it and use it like a 1541 drive. I think that I will
learn more and save up.
Well, a lot more happened, but this is very long. We
left the place around 8 pm. Later, Robert & SMJ
arrived at the commune, where, yes they did see and
Robert had some of the Kitty box cake. More pix were
taken. Talked on games and the like. Went to the
shop, the ACUG GHQ. Spent time there talking about
C= things and looking at the items in the shop.
Eventually, at some point past 2 am, the guys
headed back to the motel. I crashed, and for some
inane reason, was up early in the morning. Oh, yeah,
I am up. as Robert was bringing some Amiga things
for us. Great time, met new C= friends IRL, and hope
we will be doing this next year.
BCNU
Lord Ronin from Q-Link
COMMODORE FREE
Messycon was recoreded by Robert and is available
for purchase on 2 DVD-R in NTSC format, The
pictures in this review were extracted from the video,
you can contact Robert by the website
http://videocam.net.au/fcuq/
Fresno Commodore Users Group
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 30 -
www.commodorefree.com
THE END
Issue 19 May 2008
page - 31 -
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